Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 45-minute talk, Ven Margaret McAndrew identifies an imbalance in Western Dharma practice: we focus on avoiding bad karma while neglecting to create good. She reviews the ten non-virtuous actions and the four opponent forces for purification, then pivots to positive accumulation—taking lay vows and the Eight Mahāyāna precepts, making offerings, practicing rejoicing and bodhicitta. She explains why vows are particularly powerful: merit accumulates day and night, even during sleep. Drawing on her time in Taiwan, she contrasts Western practitioners (slow to embrace merit-building) with Chinese practitioners (whose culture naturally inclines them toward these practices). She then introduces renunciation in medium-scope practice—not renouncing chocolate cake, but understanding the delusion underneath grasping. For established practitioners.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 09 DwP 1998 03 04.mp3
UUID: 7b157403-e0a6-4e74-a0f7-eefb366bbec9
Teacher: Ven Margaret McAndrew
Collection: Evening with V M McAndrew (Ven Margaret McAndrew)
Date: 1998-03-04
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 45.3 minutes
Words: ~6,048
I go for refuge until I’m enlightened, the Buddha, the Dharma, and the highest assembly. In the virtuous merits that I collect by practicing giving and other perfections, may I attain the state of the Buddha to be able to benefit all sentient beings. I go for refuge until I’m enlightened to the Buddha, the Dharma, and the highest assembly. From the virtuous merits that I collect by practicing giving and other perfections, may I attain the state of the Buddha to be able to benefit sentient I go for refuge until I’m enlightened to the Buddha, the Dharma, and the highest assembly. From the virtuous merits that I collect by practicing giving and other perfections, may I obtain the state of the Buddha to be able to benefit all sentient beings?
I prostrate with body, speech, and mind, and face, each and every offering I make, including those actually performed and those mentally transformed. I confess everything I have collected from the beginninglessness of saṃsāra. I rejoice in all ordinary and noble being’s actions. Please, Buddha, by being as I guide until samsaric ends, reveal the teachings to sentient beings. I dedicate the merits of myself and others to the great enlightenment.
So then page four for the mandala offering. By virtue of offering, your assembly of Buddhas visualized before me this mandala built on a base resplendent with flowers, saffron water, and incense, adorned with Mount Meru on the four continents, as well as the sun and the moon. May all sentient beings share in its good effect. So now before starting, we set our motivation. So the kind of result we get from any virtual session depends largely on the motivation.
So if we have a small motivation, then we get a small result. And if we have a large motivation, get a large result. So the most beneficial motivation is to be thinking not only of our own release from suffering, but in particular to be thinking of attaining the state of fully accomplished enlightenment, so as to be able to help all sentient beings on the path to enlightenment and everlasting happiness. So not just one person ourselves, but including all. And this very great mind brings tremendous result.
It brings the path to enlightenment, the stages and realizations on that path to enlightenment. So this week I’m supposed to be talking about the medium scope, but actually I have a little bit to finish off that I didn’t get through last week. So last week I was talking about karma, observing karma, and I thought it was worthwhile talking about that in a bit more detail than I had been doing with some of the other topics, so I didn’t quite finish it. In particular, I got through the topic of avoiding non virtuous karma and how to deal with that which is created, how to purify by using the four opponent forces, and how to avoid creating negative karma by following the practice of avoiding the ten non virtuous actions. So we don’t just want to leave it with that, because we shouldn’t think that avoiding bad karma is all that Buddhism is all about.
Sometimes I think we focus so much on the bad karma that we forget about the other aspect of it, which is the creation of good karma. I think that’s something that Westerners are particularly liable to. It seems to be something that comes perhaps from our cultural background, which comes from the Judeo Christian tradition and so on. It seems to be that people it’s just my experience, just my observation, but a couple of other people I’ve mentioned this to have also agreed that they feel that Westerners are very quick to accept the idea of bad karma and the fact that we have to deal with bad karma and avoid bad karma. But they seem to be a little bit more slow in catching on to the importance of working with good karma.
Seems like that doesn’t connect as much, it doesn’t mean as much to people automatically. When I compare that to the Chinese, because I was over in Taiwan for a while, the Chinese people over there very enthusiastic about doing all kinds of practices which are designed for the accumulation of merits. They don’t have to be told how important it is because it’s part of their culture, and in fact, probably this is the kind of Dharma practice they’ve been doing all along and they find it very easy to go from doing it with the Chinese traditions of Buddhism to doing it with the Tibetan traditions of Buddhism whereas what they find is new about Tibetan Buddhism is things like the graduated path and the explanation of the philosophical teachings which they find as very, very satisfying to their intellectual questioning and wanting to understand. So anyway, that’s a bit beside the point, but I just thought I’d mention that. Does anybody need a quick run through of what the ten non virtuous actions were, or do you all remember that?
Would anybody else here remember off the top of their head? I’ll give you a clue. There’s three of body, four of speech, and three of mind. You might be able to tell me what the three of body are. Yes?
Good. That’s right. Yes. Yes. It comes in the order.
Generally, killing, stealing, sexual misconduct. And then do you remember any of the speech ones? Lying, yes. Malicious malicious gossip, you could call that. That’s the second one you’re thinking of.
The best translation I think you’ve come across is calling it divisive words or divisive speech. It has quite a number of different translations. Nothing wrong with malicious gossip, except that it tends to get confused with idle gossip, which is the fourth one. So the third one is harsh words. And the three of mind is ill will, covetousness or attachment, and wrong views.
So anyway, I won’t go into any detail about all those, or we’ll never get through, But we have to avoid those, that’s the most basic practice. Also, have to purify them with the four opponent forces. The four opponent forces are: first of all, refuge combined with bodhicitta, also regret which is the most important one, making a promise not to do it again, and carrying out some sort of positive action to offset the negative karma. In this way, we can purify to the extent that we can avoid having to experience the result. If the karma hasn’t begun to ripen yet, then we can actually purify by doing these kinds of practices.
So, talking about good karma, It’s important to realize that when we’re doing this practice of avoiding the ten non virtuous actions, and in various ways avoiding the non virtues, that that’s actually a positive. So, it’s not simply a negative, it doesn’t simply leave us in a neutral state. It means that we’re actually cultivating the positive aspects of our mind, and that’s creating a positive imprint, which is good karma. Although it’s sometimes cast in negative terms of avoiding this and avoiding that, it’s actually positive in terms of its results. This is something that we can put down on the positive side.
Then, to take this a step further, we’re actually only if we’re just trying to avoid the ten non virtuous actions, then when we’re going about our mundane everyday activities and not particularly encountering the likelihood of creating one of these ten non virtuous actions, then we’re not actually doing anything to avoid it. So it’s only when we’re actually consciously avoiding these ten non virtues that we’re laying down positive imprints. But if we take vows, if we make a promise not to do these, then the great advantage of that is that unless we’re actually breaking that vow, we don’t have to be doing anything conscious about observing it. As long as we’re just living in the observance of the vow generally, we can be accumulating the good karma of observing that vow, of avoiding that negativity day and night all the time, even when we’re sleeping, even when we’re watching television or completely occupied with something else, some sort of mundane activity. So taking vows is a very important part of our Dharma practice, it’s very very beneficial for this reason.
Of course also it’s very very beneficial because it trains our mind and it helps us to avoid these non virtuous actions it gives us more impetus because if we know that by breaking our vows will be creating more bad karma than if we’d simply done the wrong action without having a vow that gives us more motivation to keep it so we shouldn’t take vows if we feel sure we won’t be able to keep them, but if we feel that with a little bit of effort we’ll be able to keep them, then it’s very, very beneficial to take these vows, because we get this input all the time. Even if we do happen to break one of the lesser vows occasionally, as long as we’re keeping it most of the time, then the balance will be a good one because of this factor that we’re really trying to keep it and we’re having the power of the vow on our mind streams day and night. As we receive these vows from a lama who has received them in lineage tracing back to Śākyamūni Buddha, then there’s the power of the lineage that comes with it, which increases the power of the vow.
So the most commonly taken vow is the five lay precepts, or the most common set of vows, should say. It’s very commonly that people don’t take all five, so it’s possible to say take three or four rather than taking all five of them. It’s necessary, it’s absolutely necessary to take the first one, which is avoiding killing. You can’t skip that one. But the others, you can leave aside if you feel that you can’t handle them yet.
Avoiding killing particularly avoiding taking human life but it should also be extended to animals and to all kinds of physical harm to human beings and animals so then the second vow avoiding killing, avoiding stealing that means anything of value. Avoiding lying that means serious lies, intention to deceive, particularly out of wanting to harm or out of greed and attachment, wanting to cheat and get something for ourselves if we’re not entitled to these kinds of lies. As we were talking before at one of the previous talks, if you have to tell a little lie sometimes avoid hurting somebody’s feelings that’s a different thing we do this socially all the time we try to avoid it but sometimes you have to bend the truth a little and that’s not the kind of lie we’re talking about and we’re not talking about jokes that are meant to be understood as a joke if we say something really ridiculous to somebody which is not true but we know they’re going to take it as a joke then that’s not meant to deceive So that’s also not falling into the category of lies. Other one is intoxicants, or sexual misconduct, of course.
So, that actually comes with slings, stealing, sexual misconduct, lies and intoxicants. So, sexual misconduct for the layperson means having a reasonable amount of discipline in their sexual behaviour and not engaging in activities that are going to harm others, such as breaking up other people’s partnerships. Avoiding intoxicants is important because although intoxicants are not considered to be a non virtue in themselves, they destroy mindfulness. So that includes beer, alcohol, various kinds of drugs, narcotics and so on. We’re trying to develop mindfulness, so it’s important to avoid things that are going to be adverse to that result.
A lot of people actually feel that social life, being what it is in this country, that they can’t take that vow, and some of them say, Oh, I could never take this vow because my dad likes me to have a glass of wine with him when I go over there. So that’s sometimes a vow that a lot of people feel they can’t take but even if you feel you can’t take that vow it’s important to be very moderate in your alcohol intake, because the practice of mindfulness is something that’s very basic to our Dharma practice. So does anybody have anything to say about this, what we’ve been talking about so far? Yes, the five lay vows. Right, so I’ll be talking about that.
So this is another thing that we can do to increase our merit, particularly on certain days, full moon and new moon days, the result of any action, the karmic result is stronger whether it’s a virtuous or a non virtuous action. So, on those days, it’s important to put particular emphasis on avoiding non virtues and creating extra virtues. And a good way to do this is by taking the Eight Mahāyāna precepts. So I won’t go into a lot of detail about those, but some of you may have already received the transmission of the Eight Mahāyāna precepts from a lama, which is a very good way to do these precepts. If you’ve had the transmission, then you have the power of the lineage.
It makes the practice very, very powerful. It’s very worthwhile to make sure that you come along and get that transmission at some time. Once having had that transmission, you can take the vows at home by yourself. You don’t need to take it in front of a lama every time. You can take it at home by yourself or with a group of friends, and the power of the lineage is there.
So, that includes the five lay precepts, but in particular, well, all of them are intensified. You observe them much more carefully on that day, and in particular, the one of sexual misconduct means, when you’re under the Eight Mahāyāna precepts, you don’t engage in any sexual activities at all. Also, there are some extra vows, things like not singing and dancing, not wearing ornaments and cosmetics, not sitting on a high bed or throne which would induce pride in the person, and not eating meals at the wrong time when you’re taking those precepts. Normally. If it’s just taken for one day, then you don’t eat breakfast, you just eat one meal starting before midday.
There are certain other restrictions about what drinks you can have during the day and so on. So I won’t go into all those details. But this is an excellent way of practicing once in a while to engage in a little bit of extra discipline than the normal five vows. So, in addition to this, there’s a lot of other skillful actions that we can do in order to increase our good karma, and these include things like the preliminaries that we do before a meditation session. So if you want to know about those in detail, one good source is Liberation in the Palm of One’s Hand by Pabongka Rinpoche, and that includes things like making water bowl offerings, mandala offerings, the seven limbs, some of the practices that we’ve just done.
So we do those every day, and also there are certain practices particularly associated with people who want to get on to practicing tantra. There’s various what’s called preliminary practices or Ngondro practices. Some of you might have heard some of the older students talking about how they have to do one hundred thousand of this and one hundred thousand of that, and one hundred thousand Vajrasattva mantras, one hundred thousand prostrations, and one hundred thousand water bowl offerings and so on. It might sound a bit intimidating, but it’s very good if you’re interested in doing these practices, and particularly for those who want to practice tantra, it’s a necessary practice to build up the accumulation of merit that we need in order to be able to engage in these advanced type of practices. So these are skillful means and some of them are also very skillful for using in association with the four opponent forces for purification.
For instance, the Vajrasattva mantra and prostrations to the thirty five Buddhas are both practices that are very beneficial to use as the force of the antidote, the practice that we do to purify the negative karmas that we’ve created. Is this clear? Okay, so these are all useful things that we can do. There’s many different things that can be done. For instance, when I was over in Taiwan, Lama Zopa Rinpoche had everybody doing light offering practices, and he gave us a really nice light offering practice, and that was something beautiful to do and it was something that the Chinese people in particular really related to very strongly because they were already in the habit of making a lot of light offerings but he told us once to do a lot of light offerings at our center, which was unfortunately a flat halfway up a building, a set of flats one above the other, and we were somewhere in the middle.
And the idea was that we were going to go up on the roof and light all these candles in little glass containers. So we had all these candles to light on this special day, and when the day came it rained, so we couldn’t do it on the roof. So the people lit all these candles, and it got so hot inside that there were candles that would burn all through the night. So it got so hot inside that the people in the flat above and the people in the flat below were complaining to the landlord. I think, fortunately, we moved out shortly after that, so probably, if we hadn’t moved out soon, we might have been moved on.
Yes, so actually any virtuous action at all can be engaged in, and if we think about it as being something that’s for furthering our Dharma practice and dedicated for enlightenment, then it becomes very powerful. So any sort of Dharma practice meditating, listening to teachings, all the sorts of things that we do, discussing Dharma, debating, reading books, also any kind of good actions we might do to help other people, such as giving money to a good cause, such as working with some of the various different activities the Buddha House engages in, that other different organisations in our society are working in, or just helping people that you happen to meet up with who are in need of a bit of help in various different ways, even if it’s just listening to somebody telling you their troubles, and if you take a little bit of time out of your own concerns to make time for somebody else in some way like that, these are all virtuous activities, and we can all think of them as being actual Dharma practice, because they are Dharma practice, and dedicate the merit. In the same way, also we can transform all our mundane activities such as just cooking and cleaning and going to work and earning our livings and washing our clothes and so on.
We do so many mundane activities, which by themselves are just neutral. Are things that we have to do, there’s no particular meaning in them. But if we think that we’re doing these things for the sustenance of our life, for maintaining ourselves and carrying on our lives so that we can engage in Dharma practice, then these things become actual Dharma practice. It all depends on the motivation and thought with which you do them. And also, there are many different skillful means.
I won’t talk about them tonight, but there’s a lot of thought training practices in which we can transform mundane activities, and also things which appear to be obstacles and problems into actual helpful practices on the path. And by gradually learning the teachings and receiving the explanation on these practices, then we can learn these kinds of skills. It’s useful to know that these skills are all there available to us. So I just thought I’d mention some other important points while I’m on that topic that are useful for us to know in our observance of karma. They’re not listed in any particular sort of order here, but these are points that are really helpful to us if we’re going to be observing karma.
One of them is that anger destroys our merit. So our accumulation of good karma that we’ve been building up for the third fruits of our Dharma practice, if we get angry, we can really destroy that. We can really make a mess of our accumulation of merit, apparently. And so it’s said in the teachings that I forget how many eons of good karma, of merit, can be destroyed by anger. It’s important to try to control anger, to try to avoid getting angry, and to try to avoid getting angry, and to deal with our anger.
And another thing that’s very important is to remember to dedicate our merits all the time, because dedicating protects them from being destroyed by anger. But unfortunately it doesn’t prevent the result from being put off. Even if we’ve dedicated our merits, it’s going to be harder for them to ripen and it’s going to be harder to experience the results if we get angry. There’s still a very good reason to try to watch our anger and to cultivate patience. But at least if we dedicate our merits every day and after each virtuous action, then it’s building a protective wall against the anger which is going to destroy it.
Another thing, was talking last week about how karma increases. If we don’t stop this factor of karma increasing, then just day by day the result of a good action or a bad action will keep on increasing all the time. So the thing that stops them from increasing is regret. So it’s important that we should regret our bad actions and that we shouldn’t regret our good actions. In particular, in terms of regretting our bad actions, at the end of the day we should check back through our actions of the day and practice the four opponent forces which includes regret on the bad actions so the the next one rejoicing is a very powerful means of increasing the amount of karma and that also works for both good and bad so we shouldn’t rejoice in our bad actions but it’s very very beneficial to rejoice in our good actions so by this action we make that’s another skillful way of making our good actions stronger and stronger if we look back over the actions we’ve done during the day and also we can think about what we’ve done throughout our life and rejoice in those, then it makes the result much stronger.
Rejoicing is a general practice that we can do. Also, we can rejoice not only in our own good actions, but in the good actions of all beings of other ordinary beings of great beings who are on the path and of the great beings of the past who have attained enlightenment and by doing this we can also accumulate some of that merit for ourselves so the lamas always say that rejoicing is one of the most beneficial practices because we don’t have to put a lot of energy into it. For instance, if we’re going to do a hundred thousand prostrations, we have to put a lot of energy into that. But if we rejoice, we can do it even lying down, and we don’t have to put out any energy. But if we can really feel rejoicing from the heart, we can accumulate so much merit.
And it’s said that if we rejoice in the actions of somebody who is less advanced than ourselves on the path, we get twice as much merit as the person who’s actually doing the effort. If they’re on the same level as ourselves, we get an equal amount of merit, and if they’re advanced ahead of us, then we get half the amount of merit. And so it’s an incredible way of accumulating merit, and the only catch is that it really has to be done from the heart. So the thing is that we have this tendency of feeling jealousy and resentment of other people’s virtues and other people’s good actions and it’s a very powerful antidote to this so if we practice rejoicing and manage to feel it from the heart and not feeling any jealousy of other people then the amount of merit that we get is really great. And particularly if you might have difficulty with other practices for one reason or another, then rejoicing is a practice that you can really make your big practice, and it’s really incredibly beneficial.
Also, we can rejoice not only in other people’s good actions, but also in their receiving good karma, when they receive good things such as wealth, health, strength, family situations that are desirable, reputation, all these kinds of things. Whenever we see people enjoying these things, can also rejoice in their good fortune. This also creates a lot of merit for us. It can also help us to receive these kinds of things which will be helpful to us on the path as we go along. So, any questions?
Another very, very important thing is the bodhicitta motivation, which is an incredibly powerful means of increasing our merit because as we’re motivating for the welfare not just of one person but of countless beings then the increase of merit involved is also also uncountable immeasurable and we can do this every day and at the beginning of any virtuous practice as we did before starting this session important to remember first thing in the morning when we get up it’s particularly important to remember this and if we can make our first thought, bodhicitta motivation before we start the day, then the whole day’s activities will get caught up in that thought. Also, at the end of the day, as I mentioned, dedicating the merits of our day’s activities. Anyway, that finishes off the small scope practice. So, you’re familiar with the idea of the three scopes? Okay, we don’t seem to have any newbies this week.
Anyway, I won’t have to explain about the three scopes, because you know all about them, but there’s three levels of motivation. The small scope is particularly involved with avoiding lower rebirth, achieving a happier rebirth, with the idea of in the future working towards liberation or enlightenment but then that person isn’t terribly concerned with doing those kinds of practices at the present so their particular practice the main practice on the small scope is this practice of having taken refuge having fear of the suffering realms and having taken refuge in Buddhadharma and Sangha then following this practice of observing karma and it’s the most basic practice of all Dharma practice it’s the essential Dharma practice all other developments depend on it so it’s something that’s absolutely basic and then we’ve got the medium scope which is involved with the motivation of wanting to attain liberation and the great scope which wants to attain liberation not just for oneself but for all what we’re getting into now is the medium scope practices. So is everybody clear about this? Okay. So why do we have to think about practicing the medium scope?
Good answer. That’s it. Can’t really add anything to that, in a nutshell. As Mark says, we have to attain liberation from saṃsāra because it’s where all the suffering comes from. So we have to realize that while we’re just practicing the small scope, we’re not really dealing with a large part of the problem.
It doesn’t really get to the root of the problem it’s really like sticking a band aid on so what we’re trying to do is to in the small scope we’re just trying to avoid the worst kinds of samsaric sufferings but when we get to the medium scope, we look at the situation that we’re in and realize that this is just totally inadequate. It’s a good way to get started and it’s the essential practice in order to keep on having the kinds of rebirths in which we can continue to practice, but we do have to look further ahead. So we have to really want to totally escape this situation that we’re in and to find a state of liberation from all suffering. And in order to do that, we’ll have to do certain practices and in order to be motivated to do these necessary practices we have to thoroughly consider the situation that we’re in so we have to really be aware of the drawbacks of saṃsāra it’s really something that we have to think about because it’s very normal very instinctive sort of thing for us to feel that that we can be happy just by doing certain worldly actions.
We just automatically operate on this level. And it takes a lot of thinking to realize that it doesn’t work this way. So while we’re practicing Dharma, but our motivation is mainly concerned with this lower scope motivation of just wanting to have a good rebirth, just wanting to avoid the suffering realms. We can still be going along thinking that saṃsāra is pretty good. We can still expect to find happiness in this life, but this is unrealistic thinking.
We have to understand that saṃsāra is not pretty good, that it’s not realistic to expect to find happiness in saṃsāra. And we have to realize that it’s going to involve us in constant suffering, and that the very nature of saṃsāra is involved with suffering through and through. And when we say suffering, we’re not just talking about gross suffering, we’re talking about all kinds of suffering, subtle and gross, and we tend to label certain feelings as being happiness because they’re a contrast to gross sufferings, and we tend to feel that these kinds of states of mind that we label happiness, worldly happiness, samsaric happiness, are something desirable, something to be sought for. But to somebody who’s gone further along the path, even these states of happiness are totally unsatisfactory they’re still a kind of suffering because they’re only really happiness from the point of view of being a relief from the gross suffering and to somebody who has some sort of idea of the real happiness that can be achieved the great happiness that is accessible through practice to these people these kinds of worldly happinesses are just totally meaningless they’re really a kind of suffering they’re unsatisfactory so even the point is it’s not to say that there is no happiness in saṃsāra it’s not taking a negative viewpoint and saying that there isn’t any happiness, but it’s just taking the viewpoint that there is greater happiness, that compared to this greater happiness, even what we consider now to be ordinary happiness is nothing it’s really suffering by contrast with this greater happiness because we’re never totally satisfied if you think about it when have we ever been totally satisfied Even at our happiest, even at our best moments, we’ve never been totally satisfied, have we?
At least, at the very least, you’re always thinking, oh, I wish this could last forever, and you know it can’t last forever. And there’s always a fly in the ointment and even if things seem pretty perfect our mind gets tired of it the thing that brought us so much happiness yesterday brings a little bit less happiness today and a little bit less again tomorrow until we get thoroughly bored with it our minds just in themselves are fickle and constantly going on to new things so as long as we’re looking at external things we’re never going to be satisfied So, anyway, it’s not easy to really develop this thought very strongly, because for most of us, we just have this instinctive feeling that life’s meant to be happy, and if we just do the right things and push the right buttons and so on, that it’s going to be happy. And we’re constantly acting like that the whole time, we’re constantly trying to bring about the circumstances that are going to make us happy. And we have to continually reflect on the fact that it’s never really going to work we’re never going to have total security sometimes it works sometimes it doesn’t but we’re never going to have total security we’re never going to be free from the possibility of being not only not only are we actually in a state that’s unsatisfactory even when we’re happy but we’re never going to be free from being plunged again into gross suffering while we’re in saṃsāra, which means we’re under the control of delusion and karma So, this is what we mean when we talk about renunciation.
You might have heard the word renunciation used in a dharma context. Does anybody have some sort of idea of how it would be defined in a dharma context? Okay. So what is it that we’re really renouncing? Does that does that mean that if we want to achieve liberation, we can’t eat any more chocolate cake?
Well, I’m not sure that I want liberation. Well, don’t care about chocolate cake, I can renounce chocolate cake very easily, but well, for instance, curry. Okay, so we all have things that we’re attached to. So yes, it’s very easy to get caught up in this thought that renunciation means we have to give up everything that we like, and have to be terribly ascetic so this isn’t the real meaning of renunciation it doesn’t mean that we have to give up all these good things and it doesn’t mean that these things themselves chocolate cake doesn’t cause us to suffer if we eat too much of it we suffer but that’s because of our greed it’s not because of the chocolate cake it’s because of our own particular karma and our own particular delusions so the problem isn’t with the things we like but it’s because of our attitudes towards them and we have to realize that generally the problem is not with the external things we can enjoy these external things we can make use of them And it’s not even with the enjoyment, there’s nothing wrong with enjoying ourselves. Enjoyment is the result of good karma.
It’s simply something that comes to us. Whether we’re suffering, whether we’re having enjoyment, it’s simply the result of our previous karma. The enjoyment and the suffering in themselves are not bad or good they’re simply a result but we have to look at if we want to enjoy good results and not have to experience suffering results, we have to look at the causes of those things, and we talked about that before when we were talking about karma. But here we’re getting into a deeper level. We’re not just talking about looking at the creation of karma. We’re not just looking at virtuous and non virtuous actions, but we’re getting to what’s underneath these things, what’s underlying it.
So the problem is our deluded attitudes. These deluded attitudes is relating to these things with desire and clinging attachment, seeing these things themselves, seeing the object, the chocolate cake or whatever, as being the cause of happiness. If we understand that we’re just enjoying this chocolate cake because we’ve created some good karma, and the chocolate cake has come to us as a result of good karma, and also our capacity to enjoy it has come as a result of our good karma, then we’re not going to be too attached. If we feel too attached to that chocolate cake, then we’re going to somehow see the chocolate cake as the cause of our happiness.