Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 110-minute teaching on karma, Ven Thubten Dondrub presents the Buddhist law of cause and effect as the foundation for understanding suffering and happiness. He begins by clarifying that karma is not fatalistic but shows how our mind—not external circumstances—is the principal cause of all experience, using concrete examples like seeds in soil and the Buddha’s own quest to understand suffering. Dondrub then walks through the four fundamental aspects of karma: its definiteness, the necessity of causes, the permanence of imprints in the mind, and the expansion of karmic results across many lifetimes. He addresses the difficult question of child suffering directly, explaining that the mind predates birth and has accumulated vast karmic imprints over beginningless time. The talk concludes by introducing throwing karma versus completing karma, and the four determining factors—intention, object, act, and completion—that shape the potency of karmic imprints. Throughout, Dondrub emphasizes that understanding karma is meant to generate mindfulness and wisdom energy that holds us back from harm, not to breed despair about past actions. The teaching is pitched at beginners seeking to understand core Buddhist doctrine alongside anyone curious about why suffering exists.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 2013 03 05 Week 2.mp3
UUID: f1410be7-927d-4e36-8ad1-21d95a3cca12
Teacher: Ven Thubten Dondrub
Collection: DB All about Karma (Ven Thubten Dondrub)
Date: 2013-03-05
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 110.8 minutes
Words: ~13,369
Maybe we should call it something about karma. Something. Most some of the important things about karma. So this follows on from our first module of mind and its potential. So the law of cause and effect is really talking about particularly how our mind works.
It’s so important to know this subject not only to help ourselves to be free of suffering and to move towards happiness, but to be able to help others move away from suffering and begin to experience genuine lasting happiness. So we can try in studying this topic we can try and study it with what is called the bodhicitta motivation that wish to really develop our mind not just for our own sake but for the sake of others wishing to free our mind of all disturbing thoughts understanding more and more that it is our disturbing thoughts that are the actual source of all our suffering and wishing to cultivate and develop as fully as possible all our positive potentials by understanding more and more that these are the actual source of every kind of happiness and well-being and if we’re able to develop our mind fully, eliminate all causes of suffering from our mind, awaken all our positive potentials, we’ll be able to achieve the enlightened state of a Buddha. And in that state, we are in a position to be able to be to repay perfectly the the the kindness we’ve received from every sentient being during beginningless saṃsāra.
So if you’d like to join in, there’s a traditional prayer that is said at the beginning of teachings where we take generate the mind of refuge and and and the thought of bodhicitta. So of course, some people, maybe I’m not sure, quite a few people here aren’t Buddhist, but this is a Buddhist center, a Buddhist course, and I’m a Buddhist monk, so we’re doing Buddhist things. So of course, the assumption is you join in if you feel comfortable and if you find it meaningful. There’s absolutely no obligation to to join in these things, but these are but one can do so just to sort of get to discover one aspect of the Buddhadharma and of course the whole basis of Buddhadharma practice is refuge which one develops in the mind in the heart when one realizes that it is one’s mind that is the source of all suffering and the source of all happiness and one understanding that more and more we realize that we have to take care of our mind and we need a perfect method to do so. Especially when we understand our mind is something that doesn’t just exist in this life but it goes on forever.
Or either creating happiness or suffering to ourselves and others. So the more we understand that, the more more we realize we need a method to work with our mind and not just any method, need a complete perfect unbetrayable method. And one can then come to the conclusion through study and investigation that the Buddha is the perfect refuge because the Buddha has achieved that mind of of that is free of all thoughts, possesses all good qualities. And if we can have trust in the Buddha, have refuge in the Buddha, then of course we can entrust the teachings of the Buddha. They are a reflection of that pure mind and lead us to be able to achieve the same state of enlightenment.
And we can also entrust ourselves to what are called the Sangha, the community of realized beings who have actually discovered and experienced in in an authentic way the true nature of themselves and all phenomena. So on the basis of having some refuge, we can generate the wish to achieve the enlightened state, not for our own sake, but especially for the sake of others, recognizing how life after life, we totally depend directly or indirectly on the kindness of others. And and through recognizing that these kind beings who’ve been all all been our mothers many, many times are like ourselves trapped in cyclic existence but unlike ourselves are experiencing far more suffering than ourselves right now with far less ability to do anything about it. So by thinking about these things very strongly we can begin to generate this bodhicitta wish to achieve enlightenment. So to strengthen this prayer, to make it more meaningful, we and think of the Buddha in front of us as the very embodiment of all perfect qualities and as we are inspired by the Buddha we could be motivated by bodhicitta thought towards all sentient beings, it’s helpful to try and have a sense of all beings surrounding you right now, most particularly those that we’re most connected to in this life.
So we think of our mother on our left, father on our right, family, friends and helpers behind us, those who harm us in front, and then trying to open our hearts and minds to an awareness and concern for all the other beings of cyclic existence. So thing to achieve enlightenment, that involves following the path to enlightenment and the path to enlightenment involves giving up every kind of negative behavior and adopting every kind of positive behavior of body, speech and mind. So to do that properly, I need to understand the Buddha’s teachings on the law of cause and effect. So for for this reason, I will study this subject tonight. I go for refuge until I’m enlightened to the Buddha, the Dharma and the Supreme Assembly.
By the merits I create through teaching the Dharma, may I become a Buddha in order to benefit all sentient beings. So then if you find it helpful imagine that the Buddha in front of you is very pleased with your motivation and shows this by now coming to the crown of your head. And when the Buddha is directly above your crown, imagine that the Buddha then dissolves into blissful golden light so that that light can then pour down into you, blessing your mind. So then we just for a short time, we can enhance that positive state of mind by doing the nine round breathing exercise. So we start by the breath is coming in through both nostrils, we start the cycle by focusing on on the breath coming in the left nostril.
And as it as it goes out both nostrils, we focus on it going out just through the right nostril. We do that for three breaths. Then for the next three breaths, we focus on the breath coming in the right nostril, out the left nostril for three breaths. And then for the final three breaths of the cycle, we focus on the breath coming in both nostrils and out both. K.
Thank you. So as I was saying last week, there are basically there are many religions and philosophies, but in the world that have developed over time. But all of those religions and philosophies come down to argue suggesting that there are only three possible reasons why things happen and exist. One of them is that and this view existed also in ancient India, that there is basically no reason why things happen. This may be true, but it’s also it’s it’s pretty depressing if this is true, that if there’s no reason why things happen, this means that we we we are really there’s nothing we can do about our situation.
Or we can try and do things, and sometimes they work, and sometimes they don’t work. So that means there’s really no hope to be free of suffering because there’s no reason for anything to happen. There’s no way we can really have any control over our our life whatsoever. We’re kind of just doomed to experience whatever happens one way or another. And we can try and do things and who knows if they’re gonna work or how long they’ll work.
This may be true, but it’s pretty depressing, but also one as I said, one can see that some things have a cause, many things have a cause. Sometimes it’s very difficult to see any cause behind things, but it is also possible to see to some extent how in fact everything is connected to everything else in some way. This has become a very popular idea about how if a butterfly this cute little fluffy idea about if a butterfly flaps its wings wings in Brazil, then, you know, the effects will be if, you know, something happens and then something happens, something hap I can’t remember the final result but I think you’ve heard this kind of idea. And it’s kind of true. Everything is interconnected so if we can see causes for some things it does indicate that actually everything has a cause even if we can’t actually see it or discover it.
And I don’t want to go into this too much because it sounds like I’m insulting religions and putting them down. But of course Buddhism argues that there is no creator God. And this all relates to is not trying to say Buddhism is better than other religions or this or that but the founder of Buddhism Śākyamūni Prince Gautama he left his wonderful life because he saw there was suffering and he couldn’t understand why is there suffering? Why do people grow old, get sick and die and suffer? What is the reason?
And that’s what he went to discover. Why does this come about? And in following the Buddhist path, we believe the Buddha discovered the truth. And if one really understands the what what is meant by mind in Buddhism and all its implications, it means that there is no creator God. Because mind gives rise to everything and the cause of mind is just this previous moment in the same continuum.
It it just doesn’t make sense in any way that something else has created our mind, in fact couldn’t create our mind. The only thing that can create our mind is a previous moment. And if one understands the law of cause and effect, that also implies there is no creator. And especially if one under gets some idea of the most profound essential teaching of the Buddha, which is about the nature of reality, the how everything is actually empty of inherent existence, that teaching, which is at the heart of all the Buddha’s teachings, the Buddha appeared in this world to teach us emptiness, to encourage us to discover our true nature. If we understand this teaching, it means that there cannot be a creator.
If things are if there is a creator, then things truly exist. If things truly exist, they are not empty of inherent existence. But if one studies the logic of of the Buddha’s teachings about emptiness, one can see maybe I’m just being arrogant that there’s a huge incredible truth to them. And then also, just very briefly, if a creator god existed, if a creator existed, what a creator is who created everything. Right?
That’s what the creator god is. Someone, something, someone who created everything. And there was nothing before. Right? That’s why you have God.
All all the theistic religions say, you know, why is why is everything here? Because there was this divine force, the creator, who created it. Right? The Muslims say this, the Christians say this, the Hindus say this. This.
Everyone says this, theists that is. So that means there was no one, no one created the creator because if there’s some if someone created the creator, that was the creator. And and so no one could have created that creator cause if someone created that creator that creator who created the creator is the creator. So a creator has to be the what what in a technical way is a first cause. And a first cause means something that doesn’t depend on anything else at all because if it depended on something that thing would be a cause.
And a first cause can’t have causes. So a first cause is independent, doesn’t depend on causes. Something that doesn’t depend on causes is permanent, doesn’t change. The only things that change are things that depend on causes. This is again a fundamental insight and teaching of the Buddha that all things that depend on cause and conditions are impermanent they change momentarily whereas things that don’t depend on causes don’t change at all.
So space is something that doesn’t depend on causes it exists and because it doesn’t depend on causes, it doesn’t change. And it can’t do anything. So if there was a creator that was a first cause, it would be permanent. Therefore, it couldn’t change. Therefore, it couldn’t create.
Anyway, this is the Buddhist view, some simple logic that Buddhists put forward to suggest So if if there isn’t a creator and the explanation of that there’s no cause for things doesn’t work, then the other possibility is the Buddhist view that everything has a cause. Everything that happens has a cause. And as I tried to say last week, the fundamental thing to try to understand, which is the most difficult, is that everything that actually appears so solid and real, the only way it appears is depending on our mind. It depends on our mind. Everything for us for this solid what appears to be this very, very solid world to appear to us, it it does through it does so through our mind.
So everything we experience is an experience of our mind. So this suggests that as I tried to say last week, the only thing that can cause the experiences of the mind is something directly connected with the mind. Yeah. So what the Buddha discovered is that what we think are the causes of our happiness and suffering, external people, external things, are in fact just conditions. Buddhism isn’t denying that if certain external conditions do lead in some way to experience happiness or suffering, But but what Buddhism says, they are not the root cause, not the principal cause.
The main cause is our own mind. They those external things are just conditions. That you need them, but they’re secondary. And again, if you take the example I tried to give last week, you imagine like in the CSIRO, they have a box of the most wonderful perfect tomato growing soil that they have invented yeah so you have the box of tomato soil and all the in a laboratory all the perfect conditions for growing tomatoes and you have the box but there are no tomato seeds in that box you’re not going to get any tomatoes. On the other side if you’ve got a packet of perfect tomato seeds and they’re in the packet they’re never growing to grow as tomatoes.
You have to have the seeds and the conditions. And so one could argue that the conditions and the seeds have the same value, the same power, but they don’t because if you take the example, this is the box of soil. There and it’s all these conditions are all absolutely equal. If you, you know, if you plant the seed here, the only place the only place a tomato seed grow plant will grow is there. Even though everywhere else has exactly the same conditions to grow plant the tomatoes.
It will only grow where a a plant tomato plant will only grow where the seed is. This shows that the seed is the vital thing, the main cause, the root cause. Another way to think about it, and really suggest you do, because this is really the most important thing. What causes our happiness? This is why the Buddha became Buddha, why he left.
The Buddha started out with everything we would like to have. Thinking if I had all this stuff, I’d be really happy. Well, at least, you know, he he start he had the male version of what every male would like, which was, you know, he he was good looking, handsome, well built. He was good at all sorts of sports. He had a palace.
He had lots of lady friends. He had, you know, lots of wives. I don’t know what the male female. I don’t know if females have we don’t have the same version of that. Anyway, so he had nice chariots, ancient equivalent of Maseratis and everything.
He had the whole works and he left it all. He started out having everything that we think if I had those things, I really would be happy. Because he saw it didn’t bring happiness and it didn’t stop old age sickness and death. He wanted to discover why is there suffering. So, yeah, so this is the most vital question in the world.
And there are as I said, there are only three answers. There is a creator. There’s no reason. Or there’s the Buddhist answer. There may be another version, but I think they’re they’re the main ones.
And also one point to look at is that the way we live our life is that we somehow believe believe is not the right word. I don’t think there’s a word in our language to actually cover, you know, this how we act. But we just grasp, believe, assume that something out there is happiness and something out there suffering. But even if that was true, it’s not true. There’s there’s no happiness in beautiful things.
There’s no suffering in ugly, bad things and people, you you know, which can be imported into me. You know, the pleasure I get from looking at this isn’t doesn’t come from that. It it doesn’t get imported into me. Yeah. Right?
It’s although we somehow think it is because that’s why, you know, if I get it, I’ll be really happy. Alright? Anyway, but even if that was the case, even if that was true, that somehow, you know, the the you you somehow extract the happiness from that into yourself. If we ourselves did not have the potential to experience happiness, how could this make you happy? And if we didn’t have within us the potential for suffering, how could something out there make us suffer?
So this shows it’s the inner potential that is the most important thing. This gets a bit more complicated. So anyway, the mind, the pure mind, the unobscured mind has this potential for perfect happiness as I tried to explain in the previous course but our mind is obscured and that obscured mind has a potential for some happiness and a potential for a lot of suffering And the potential for suffering comes from the direct cause of the negative imprints, karmic imprints in our mind. The cause of those is our own disturbing thoughts basically or those thoughts and acting on them and the cause of those is our ignorance and with the for the obscured mind the cause of happiness is the direct cause is the ripening of the positive karmic imprints. The cause of those is following our positive thoughts of love, compassion, kindness, generosity, patience, etc.
And the source of those is the pure nature of our mind, intrinsic Buddha nature. Ultimate source of our suffering is our ignorance. The source of every kind of happiness is our Buddha nature. When that Buddha nature is unobscured, you get perfect, everlasting bliss. When that Buddha nature is obscured and only a little bit of that goodness can pop out you get some temporary happiness.
To summarize what I was trying to say last week, there are and it’s it is actually all set out. I hope you realize because it was part of your homework to check. There’s a on page sixteen and seventeen and eighteen, I think, listed subjects of karma and I there won’t be time to talk about all of them probably but the first very topic is the four aspects of karma so I tried to talk about these last week that karma is definite that there is always every effect good and bad has a cause and the nature of the cause Determines the nature of the effect right so that is definite it never never ever changes for anyone. It’s it’s it it works for everyone all the time and for everyone all the time. Whether we’re human, animal, in the ghost realms, hell realms, god realms, wherever we are, that’s how the mind works.
Negative causes bring suffering, positive causes bring happiness, some kind of happiness. And as I try to say, you know, there is a valid universal unchanging basis for talking about positive and negative, which is the mind itself. What obscures the mind is negative and what, you know, doesn’t obscure the mind helps the mind to become less obscured is something positive, is virtuous. By definition what is negative or non virtuous, unskillful is it is labeled that because it brings suffering. What is labeled virtuous and positive is is labeled that because it is what actually brings happiness.
So then the second fundamental aspect of the law of cause and effect is that an effect always requires a cause. So if one is experiencing suffering of any kind, from the smallest kind of suffering and difficulty and problem to the greatest it’s because there is a cause and the cause lies within oneself and it doesn’t mean that one’s created the cause like five minutes ago or even in this life It means that at some point what those ones in a in a previous time the previous stream of consciousness has, you know, generated some negativity. That an imprint has been generated and now when all the conditions come together it ripens the suffering. And similarly if we’re experiencing any kind of happiness it’s because at some point we’ve created the cause. So so this means if we don’t want suffering, we need to avoid the causes.
And if we want happiness, we have to create the causes. If we don’t create the causes for happiness, we will never experience it. And if we don’t stop the causes of suffering, we will always experience suffering. And I just I probably you know I always get myself into trouble, but I’ll just say this because sooner or later someone asks this and usually they ask it in a very upset way Are you saying that little children little babies deserve the suffering they have if they’re you know like molested by a pedophile or you know, burnt alive or something and the answer is no, they don’t deserve it, but they did create the cause. Because we have to understand because, you know, everyone thinks that a little baby is new, but it’s not.
The body is new, but the mind is ancient. Everyone sorry. I don’t want to offend parents here, but the parents think this child is mine. This is my baby. And after a up to some point, that’s kind of true.
But from a Buddhist point of view, in a way, it’s not true at all because this being is its own being, and it has its own history. The parents created the body, but they didn’t create that being. Because that being the most important part of any being, any sentient being is not their body, body but their mind. They aren’t just their mind, but the most important aspect of any person is their mind. And no parent has created the mind of their child and they didn’t create it wasn’t created by anyone in that life.
That mind has no beginning. No one created it. No external being created it. It has existed during beginningless time. And during beginningless time, every mind, our each of us here, our minds has created an infinite array of good and bad actions, generated an infinite array of positive and negative karmas.
And what we need to understand with the example of my wonderful wonderful example of the tomatoes and the seeds is that for a seed to ripen, you have to have the conditions. And when the conditions come together, the the seed just has to ripen. So karma is a very complicated subject, and a karmic seed a negative karmic seed doesn’t simply ripen because a person is bad. It’s not because you’re bad that a negative karma ripens. It ripens because sooner or later it has to.
Because this is the third factor of karma that once the imprint is generated good or bad, it will remain in the mind. And as it remains in the mind for a lot, you know, it can remain in there for billions of lifetimes. During those billions of lifetimes, there is plenty of time to come. There is plenty of time for the conditions to come together. And sooner or later, the conditions do come.
And once they’re there, bingo, the seed ripens. A good one or a bad one. So one can be a wonderful person, but that one has these negative imprints and the conditions come so the karma ripens. One of my main teachers, Lama Thubten Yeshe, who’s depicted over here on the right, on the left of his holiness, who’s responsible for the center starting, a truly great great being Bodhisattva, incredibly kind, super compassionate. He had a really serious heart condition.
He died when he was forty nine because of his heart condition. So even really highly evolved beings, you know, experience suffering because not you’re not a highly evolved being from the beginning or there’s no beginning anyway. Every highly evolved being was just an ordinary Joe blow or Jill blow at some point. And when you’re an ordinary being, you create negative actions and those imprints are there. And very good things can happen to bad people because bad so called conventionally bad people were not always bad.
They did many good things in past lives so they have the imprints so when the conditions come together they get the good result. It’s like that. Of course, it gets more complicated, so one can be in an extremely good state of mind and horrible things can happen, but generally speaking the more negative we allow ourselves to be mentally when we get into a really negative state that is like the best the worst conditions for our negative karma to ripen. If we want the best field, the optimum conditions for negative karma to ripen, it’s when our mind is in a really bad state. But there are exceptions that we can be in a good state doing virtuous things, and still negative karma can ripen because that’s what happens.
Sooner or later, the karma ripens. It’s even more complicated than that, and I’ll try to explain later on. Which is connected to the fact that relation to this third point that once a karma imprint is generated positive or negative it stays with the mind and will ripen. Remember there are two exceptions that unfortunately those positive seeds imprints can be destroyed by our very strong negative emotions particularly anger. Every time we get angry we wipe out some of our positive imprints.
This is why we’re still in saṃsāra because all of us have probably been at a point where we were about to get some major realization to blast through and then we got angry and got upset and just wiped it out. Sort of snakes and ladders effect. The good thing is that our negative imprints can a similar thing can be done to our negative imprints by engaging in very strong virtuous actions and there is a particular practice called the applying of the four opponent powers which I’ll talk about in a couple of weeks of how to actually purify the mind. This is said to be the main way to purify the mind of negative imprints, that any negative imprint can be purified by applying the Four Opponent Powers. So the final factor of the four main aspects fundamental aspects of the law of cause and effect is that when the karmic imprint ripens and remember I’ll say this again that karmic imprints can ripen at any time but generally speaking the karmic imprints that we generate through the actions we do in this life don’t ripen in this life.
Of course there is some effect in this life. For example, if if we practice just one meditation session then there will be some effect in this life from it. The effect may only last a very short time but the effects could last a very long time. One meditation session, could in that session, even without any real concentration or anything, we could develop some real understanding and faith in certain things, certain teachings. And because of that, the effect would be we practice them throughout our life.
And so that that has also many flow on effects in this life. So there is a cause doing that meditation and there is effects in this life. But what I’ve tried to emphasize from the beginning of last week’s talk is one of the essential things about the law of cause and effect is it’s not talking about so much what happened the effects of what we do in this life. The law of cause and effect is talking about how our mind works and how our mind generates karmic potencies. And these karmic potencies usually do not ripen in this life.
They ripen in future lives. So an action in this life will have effects in this life, but it also more importantly generates karmic potencies and what the fourth fundamental aspect of the law of cause and effect says is when those karmic potencies ripen in future lives they ripen in a far far greater way than that than how to put it. To create a karmic energy potency good or bad can be done in a few moments with almost no effort. But when that seed ripens it can bring an entire lifetime of happiness, entire lifetime of suffering and the lifetimes in the lower realms go on for millions of years. And in fact in the teachings it says things like if you kill a person that one of the karmic one of the karmic effects not all just one of the karmic effects, is that one will experience being killed five in five hundred different lives.
I can’t prove that, but that’s what it says in the sutras. This is the law of cause and effect. Only the Buddha can see this. Even in our heart can’t see how the law of cause and effect works. So this fortunately fortunately this works for good things.
If we do a tiny little good action, the potency it generates when it ripens can bring enormous benefit for many lives. You give with a good heart, like a like a a grain of sugar to an ant, lifetimes of happiness possible. Possible. Skies of merit. Possible.
Especially if you do it with bodhicitta. This is what the Buddha taught. It’s karma is very easy to create, good and bad, but bad karma is much easier to create than good karma, unfortunately, and much more difficult to purify. It’s very easy to wipe out good karma good karmic imprints. It’s very difficult.
It’s possible, but it’s a lot of hard work to purify the negative That’s why it’s much better to avoid them at all cost engaging in negative actions So anyway in this so the fourth aspect of karma is that it’s expandable and the Buddha himself gave an analogy to explain this where he said that if you take a tiny seed he never said a tomato seed but he said if you take a small seed of a tree and it and it’s planted, then with time, this tiny seed produces an enormous tree, you know, with a lot of fruit and leaves enormous, you know, from just this tiny tiny seed. So in the same way, from just a moment’s anger, the the the karmic imprint generated by that can bring a whole lifetime or even many lifetimes of suffering. This is what the Buddha taught. But this is why it’s good to avoid this, you know, every kind of negative negativity, put effort. You know, there’s a four line verse of the Buddha that summarizes all the Buddha’s teachings.
There’s slightly different versions of it. And, basically, it says avoid even the slightest negative action, put effort into engage in to put effort into engaging in virtuous actions, purify your mind. This is the teaching of the Buddha. Put effort into no. What was it?
Put effort into engaging actions. Avoid even the small oh, I think I’ve changed it already. Avoid negative actions. Put effort into engaging even small virtuous actions, purify the mind. This is the teaching of the Buddha.
Something like that. But this so this is very important to remember that and it can give us the the energy to avoid negative actions but it can also give us the energy to engage in virtuous actions if we remember that just doing some small thing in this life will have great benefit in the future. And what one thing I found helpful in in trying to continue practicing or being a Buddhist is something that one great Tibetan Lama, Geshe Ngawang Dhargyey, who was appointed by His Holiness the Dalai Lama to teach at the Tibetan Library of Works and Archives in Dharmasala. Geshe Dhargyey once said something like, don’t expect or don’t don’t get upset. Don’t expect any results in this life from your Dharma practice and don’t get upset if you don’t get ups get any results from your Dharma practice in this life.
What you what one should remember is that everything you do in this life, all your Dharma practice will have enormous results in the future. Enormous results. This is what we should understand, that we may never be able to meditate very well in this life, but if we still do it, we are we’re creating the karmic cause to be able to be interested in meditation in future lives, to want to do it, and we will be able to do it far, far better in future lives because we’ve created the cause to. We’ve put the imprints in our mind in this life. And we may not understand emptiness in this life, the most important thing to understand, but if we study it, put the imprints in our mind.
And then in future lives we will have created the cause to be able to meet these teachings, have faith in them, and to begin to understand them. My teacher, Lama Zopa Rinpoche, who was one of the great masters this is not just my unbiased opinion or biased opinion, but one of the great masters of the Gelugpa tradition live at the moment. Rinpoche has always shown a great devotion to dharma texts themselves and treating them very respectfully. Rinpoche makes the point that if you just treat, you respect Dharma books and look after them well and keep them clean and in a clean place and cover them nicely in cloth and all these kinds of things. There’s all these advice in the teachings about how to treat Dharma texts.
He said this is an example of a subtle karma whereby doing that you are creating the cause to be able to meet the Dharma in the future. And when you meet it, you will respect it and have faith in it, and your mind will be affected by it. Because you’ve treated it in this life, you’ve looked after it, you’ve recognized that this is precious. What what this book contains is something priceless because it, you know, it it it will enable us to be free of suffering. And so by by treat just by treating a dharma book properly with the right understanding, this is developing our wisdom.
Right? The wisdom that under wisdom is it evolves out of the fundamental factor of intelligence and not intelligence to say, you know, kind of, you know, able to, I don’t memorize the Encyclopedia Britannica or something like that. But intelligence from Buddhist understanding is the ability to understand what is right and wrong, what is meaningful and meaningless, virtuous and non virtuous. That’s what intelligence is about. The ability to distinguish what is meaningful from meaningless.
And if you cultivate that, that develops into the wisdom that is able to recognize that things appear this way, but they can’t appear this way. And then you develop the wisdom, the wisdom that liberates us from suffering. And it all comes down to just very subtle things, simple things like recognizing how precious even the written words of the Dharma are. This is a subtle what what is called a subtle dependent arising. Just very small things can have enormous effects enormous effects in the mind that reverberate for an immensely long time.
Any questions? I don’t think I said that. No. I just said it’s easier to create negative actions and and more difficult to purify them. Why is that?
Just you check. Well it’s because even though we have Buddha nature is our nature we’ve never experienced that nature directly. The mind has been beginninglessly asleep and obscured so we are more familiar with negativity. As I said I think before, no one has to go to school to learn to be angry, Right? To be jealous, to lie, to steal.
You don’t have to learn those. You don’t have to go to school. But to be really how to be really compassionate, one needs to learn that. Well, we all have some ability to do it, but but to be really compassionate and kind and patient Yes. We’re getting to that subject.
The next this is the topic for tonight, which I haven’t left any time for. That was just the summary of last week. Once again, I’ve blown it. But, yes, karma is very much about intention. Yes.
Yes. But it’s very tricky. It’s like everything. Yes. It is.
It just is. Just like the things in this life, what we do in this life have huge repercussions or can. Right? They just do. Yes.
Give up. Yes. Yes. Okay. It is.
Yes. It’s very scary. So I wouldn’t have mentioned it in this class, but you brought it up. So unfortunately. Yeah.
Yeah. Yes. But the point you the general point you brought up maybe is something to consider that a lot of people when they hear this topic and think oh, and they you start to get the idea that how incredibly easy it is to create negative karma and I must have in fact, I know I’ve created piles and piles and piles of negative karma. Then you think, oh, I am doomed. It is impossible to be, you know, to follow the spiritual path.
There’s no hope, at least for me because I’m just terrible and I’ve done terrible terrible things. And then, oh my god, past lives I must have done, you know, I am doomed. There is no hope. This is not the way to think. This is not the way to think.
It’s and it’s because it’s not what’s the word? Not only because it’s not useful way to think, but it’s not the correct way to think. Because what we should realize is that we are in saṃsāra. Right? saṃsāra is our mind controlled by delusion and karma.
So the vast majority of sentient beings do not know that they’re in saṃsāra. And and like myself, I didn’t know for the first thirty years of my life. And it’s only because the Buddha has come to this world to explain what saṃsāra is that we can begin to know. And so what am I trying to say is that so when one is in we’re all in saṃsāra, but most people don’t know. And because they don’t know, there there’s really no way to get out of it and change.
You know? One just remains because one doesn’t know one’s in saṃsāra and what that involves, one will continue to create negative karma. But once one knows the teachings and has some faith in them and especially the law of cause and effect, what we have to understand is that we will continue to create negative karma, negative actions with our body, speech and mind. But what separates once one knows the Dharma and has some faith in it and the law of cause and effect is the difference is that although we continue to engage in negative actions, now have some understanding that we never had before that enables us to reduce the amount of negativity that we engaged in and to engage in more and more virtuous actions and to be able to purify negative ones that we we we’ve already engaged in. So although we will still we we have to accept that for many lives we will engage in negative actions, there is now hope because we know what is negative and we can begin to reduce that behavior, purify it, and increase the amount of positive.
And that’s what we should focus on. Not that, oh, I’m engaging in negative actions and have because that’s the nature of saṃsāra. Yes. Yes. Right.
Yes. I think in the same way that the parents who have a child like that have created the cause to have that child. Yes, but all the all the karma yeah, yeah to some extent yes, yes I Mean basically what the law of cause and effect is saying which is pretty scary is like in which I’ve just said is that everything we experience has to have a cause and if we’re experiencing it our mind created the cause. But it’s not saying I can’t emphasize enough, in fact I don’t yet, well I tried to before is that when negative things happen the Buddhist teaching isn’t saying suffering occurs because we are bad people and evil. All it is simply saying is that if we are experiencing some terrible thing, you know, small, big, medium problem, difficulty, suffering, There is a cause and we created the cause at some time.
Not because we’re evil, but because we are ignorant. And we have and because we’re ignorant we have disturbing thoughts and we follow them. And so, having done that, the result has to come. People can experience that situation in many many different ways and that also depends on their minds which depends on the karmic imprints in their minds. Mean, probably shouldn’t say this, in many cases when a child is born really deformed, mom stays to love the child and dad runs away because they can’t cope.
Yeah? And the mother loves the child, you know? So that’s because of her good karma. And she’s creating some, you know, good karma by taking care of that child and loving it and doing everything to you know, and and the father has created some mourning, their karma by running away and not having any but, you know and then the other people, you know, look at that child and think, oh, deformed child, horrible, disgusting, and other people, you know, generate love and, you know, all sorts of things depending on the mind. But also someone can look at a child and think all horrible disgusting and then they look at their mind and think all my mind thinking horrible disgusting is horrible disgusting and they can change their mind and the ability to do so is because they’ve got some positive karma imprint that enables them to realize their own negative qualities.
It’s a very complicated thing, but it’s all the law cause and effect working in the one way. Or some previous moment. Yeah. Yeah. Has acted.
Yes? Pretty much. Remember there’s a little I’ve got the whole tonight’s topic to start yet. I’ll I’ll really I won’t. It’s time to break.
Oh, no. I’ve got a few minutes. Can I start tonight’s topic? Tonight’s topic is the four determining factors and the four results of karma. So firstly as an introduction to that One can divide karmic imprints in many many ways there’s positive ones negative ones neutral ones this that one way of looking at them is there are two major kinds of karmic imprints.
One are called one type of karmic imprint is called a throwing karma and the other kind of karmic imprint is called a completing karma. So the throwing karmas are the most important ones. These are the most powerful ones. And the throwing karmas refer to the karmic imprints that well, remember karma means the action. So there are actions that are very strong that create throwing karmic imprints.
And what this refers to is these throwing karmic imprints, these are the imprints that ripen at the time of death and in a sense throw the mind into a particular type of rebirth. In other words when we die at the time of death just generally speaking because it’s again very complicated, but generally speaking at the time of death one karmic imprint will ripen. A throwing karmic imprint will ripen. It will either be a positive or a negative one. And depending on the state of mind we’re in when we die, that will determine what kind of throwing karma will ripen and that will throw us into the next life.
It will determine if we will have a human rebirth, a rebirth in the lower realms, in the God realms. Right? And specifically at the time of death, if we die in a negative state of mind controlled by anger, afflicted desire, attachment and so on. This is the optimum CSIRO plot of land to have a for a negative throwing karma ripen, to throw oneself into the lower realms. If one dies in a really virtuous state of mind with a mind of faith, very calm, kind, compassionate, etcetera, etcetera, This is the optimum field for a virtuous throwing karma to ripen and one will definitely have a good rebirth.
So the throwing karmas are the ones that ripen at the time of death. Yeah. And just one of them. We can create many throwing karmas in this life, but only one will ripen at the end of this life. The others just wait for other deaths.
They hang around like vultures, you know for another dead you know dead time and what another one will ripen like that so these are the ones to really avoid and for a throwing karma to be created or a throwing karmic imprint to be created. A throwing karmic action has to have four factors and all four factors have to be present and quite strong. So if they’re not if all four factors aren’t present or they’re not very strong then you create the other kind of karma which is called a completing karma and the completing karmas ripen within a lifetime. So for example in our previous life and let’s all assume we were human to make it easier in our immediate previous life we were all human beings and when we died a virtuous throwing karma ripened, and that’s why we now again have a human rebirth. So a one virtuous throwing karma ripened to produce this rebirth.
But during this life we’ve had, all of us have had some good experiences and some bad experiences. Right? So those bad experiences we’ve had are the result of the ripening of completing karmas, and the positive experiences we’ve had in this life are the result of the positive completing karmas. And they’re called completing karmas because they complete the nature of our of our life. They they complete the experiences of this life.
The throwing karma starts the life and the completing karmas complete the details of our life. So is is that sort of clear? Yep. Okay. So break.
Tea break. Coffee break. Ten minute break. How’s this? Good?
Yes. Right. Okay. I was planning to have a that we should have a discussion group tonight, but there’s too much to cover. I’m sorry.
And I have not organized the discussion group groups, so I’ll just keep going if you don’t mind. Well, we can have some more questions, though. But yeah. So oh, maybe just to go back to back a little bit. What in in conclusion about them looking at the four aspects of karma, the four essential aspects of karma.
These are very important things to meditate on. They don’t look like interesting things to meditate on. People sort of I I think some people have the idea that you meditate on really nice things, you know, fluffy bunnies and lotuses and, you know, pretty things and stuff like that. But my teacher, Lama Zopa Rinpoche, says it’s really important to meditate on on these four things because by doing so and trying to see the possibility of how they they could work and explain things and seeing that, you know I mean, the Buddha said this is this is how things are. So we need to try and if we have any faith in in the Buddha at all, we try to see how these things could, you know, be true and how they work.
And and by meditating on them again and again and developing a deeper faith in these four points, then it helps us to be mindful in our daily life. And our mindfulness of these four things is the it helps us to avoid engaging in negative actions. Yeah. If if we understand that if, you know, this action, if I I if it’s negative, if I do it, it’s definitely going to have a suffering result. You know?
And and and having created the cause, the the result will definitely come. And it may take many lifetimes, but it will come. And when it comes, it’ll be far, far greater than the suffering I’ve been trying to avoid by engaging in this negative action. Yeah. So there are many ways we can try and avoid negative actions, but this is this is an important way of just seeing how by by reflecting on this again and again, it helps us to be mindful of of of what is negative and mindful of how negative it it it is, you know, all the the suffering consequences.
And that should help us. It becomes an energy of what Lama Yeshe would call a wisdom energy that holds us back from engaging in negative actions. There are many explanations of what the word dharma means. And one meaning of the word dharma is almost exactly the same as the Latin word I don’t know how to pronounce it in Latin, religio, which is where we get the word religion and religious. The word the Latin word religio has the same meaning as the the word dharma at or one of the meanings of dharma, which is to hold back.
And what what you what are we held back from is suffering. That’s what religion holds us back from, and that’s what the dharma is for. It is to hold us back from suffering. So then and and similarly knowing what are the four determining factors that determine the potency of the imprints we generate by knowing these things and being mindful of them, it also helps. And and also the the four results of these actions also is extremely important in developing this mindfulness that will hold us back.
It it creates some wisdom energy that that, you know, yeah, stops us doing negative things because we have such an enormous tendency to do negative things. All of us, if the conditions are there. You know, may we may like to think we’re all really sweet, lovable people who’d never, you know, hurt a flea. And most of the time, we wouldn’t, hopefully. But because we have self-cherishing, if the conditions are there just like the tomato plant when the conditions are there, the disturbing thoughts arise.
They activate. And when they’re activating, it’s very hard to stop them. But what can help us hold back from that is this understanding. So the first of the four determining factors that determines potency of the imprints we generate and it’s the most important one is called the impulse or the intention. So to to create a a strong karmic imprint, we have to have a conscious intention to do something.
Right? Everything we do, even if we we don’t consciously do it, it still has some effect. But the, you know, the the greater effect comes from the greater potency of the imprint and the the potency of the imprint depends particularly on having a conscious motivation to do a particular action, good or bad. In explaining the law of cause and effect, the tradition is usually to give examples, especially with the four determining factors of negative actions, but it applies equally to virtuous actions. So in the case of engaging in a negative action, you have to have the conscious motivation to do so.
And and behind that is one of the four oh, sorry. One of the three poisonous minds of either attachment, anger, or ignorance itself. So you do something out of attachment. So for example, like killing. You can kill, you know, the obvious reason for killing is is anger, but you can also kill out of attachment.
You may not like, for example, in cases of, you know, love triangles and everything. So you kill someone not because you dislike the person, but you’re attached to the someone. You you know, you want to be with this person so you kill their partner so you can be with them. So you don’t you don’t kill out of anger as such, but you kill out of attachment. Or, you know, going fishing.
You don’t hate the fish, but you’re attached to eating it or you’re just attached to the idea of the sport that this is an enjoyable activity. But but also that’s an example maybe of just pure ignorance of not knowing it is it is negative, thinking there’s nothing wrong with killing animals. And most people in our culture unfortunately think there’s nothing wrong with killing animals or insects or whatever. But insects are sentient beings just like us. No different.
Alright. Right. And it it gets it kind of complicated, but also as part of that impulse, the impulse is directed to a specific object. You know, you direct it to a specific being or group of beings or whatever. And so okay.
Any question on that? Sort of generally idea is is there. So if you walk on an ant and you don’t even know you’ve walked on an ant and you kill it, there is some karma. That is a karma. It is an action, and you’ve taken a life.
So there is some imprint in your mind, but it’s not very strong because there was no conscious intention to kill. Right? No conscious intention whatsoever, and it there was no, you know, anger or attachment or ignorance involved there. But, know, if you see an ant and you could, you know, with great ease, you know, step over, but you decide, I’m gonna kill that little rat or that little ant. That’ll be fun, you know, and you do it, then, you know, you have the conscious motivation and there’s the the the delusion.
And and yeah. So that’s makes a strong imprint in the mind. Of course, similarly, if you if you decide, you know, I won’t work on it, I won’t step on it, there’s a conscious motivation. I’m not going to. I could.
It would be easy, you know, but I’m not going to. So that is a conscious motivation and it’s motivated by some kind of compassion, consideration, etc. So that generates a positive imprint in the mind. So then the second factor is the object itself. So again, it has to be unmistaken.
I must admit myself this I find a bit difficult to understand and relate to. But for example, you know, maybe I want to kill Karen. Sorry. So I try and shoot Karen. But since I’m a bad shot, I end up killing Danny.
Right? So this doesn’t become a complete karma of killing because it’s not a miss it’s an it’s not an unmistaken object. I intended to kill you, but killed someone else instead. This I don’t really understand this one at all, but it is explained it’s mentioned in the teachings. Let’s leave that one aside.
The main thing is the nature of the being you harm or benefit. So here, generally, we talk about in in in terms of avoiding negative karma because the main thing in our practice is first to avoid negativity. Being super kind, super compassionate, unbelievably generous, all these virtuous, super virtuous actions is wonderful, but the basic thing is first to avoid the negative things. Because avoiding negative things is virtue. Right?
When we consciously avoid negativity, that is virtue. Right? So we do need to know what is negative. So, of course, if you if you if I hit, you know, this flower, then, you know, I can do it with, you know, a negative mind. I get really angry.
So I, you know, I throw this at the wall or something and break it. So because, you know, I’ve I’ve expressed all this negativity, some negative imprint has also been generated in my mind, but I haven’t harmed a sentient being. But if I harm a sentient being, you know, because of my anger, this is of course making a far greater negative imprint potency in the mind. And also it depends on the sentient being. So you’re all gonna get up in arms about this and say, this is, you know, this is contradictory because the Buddha says all sentient beings are the same.
I’ve just said all sentient beings are basically the same. We all have Buddha nature. That is true. But at any point in time and in any life, sentient beings have different capacity for benefit and harm. So generally speaking, if you harm a a being who has more potential in that life or ability to be beneficial, that is much worse than harming someone who has less.
So to harm a human being is worth generally speaking, this is general. Remember? These are guideline teachings that help us, you know, live our life. There’s many there can be many, many exceptions just like ordinary human law, you know, has incredible sorts of subclauses and mitigating factors and blah blah blah. That’s why we have court cases and judges and everything.
So this is just giving us a rough idea of things. So generally speaking, it is worse to harm a human being than an animal. Right? We can’t harm other sentient beings because they’re in different realms. The only other kind of sentient being that we can benefit or harm are animals, you know, fish and insects and so on.
Right? So harming a human being is worse than harming all the different kinds of animals. Right? And then among human beings, there are certain human beings that if you harm is far worse. So harming one’s parents is is, generally speaking, worse than harming others.
Harming holy being, a genuinely holy being is far worse than harming someone who isn’t. Harming one’s Dharma practitioners is worse than harming someone who isn’t practicing the Dharma. Harming someone who is following a religious life, a virtuous life is far worse than harming someone who isn’t living a a virtuous life, who’s actually living a non virtuous negative life. And harming one’s teachers is the worst of all. That’s the that is especially, you know, one’s gurus, the peep the people you choose as as your teachers in the spiritual path who you see try to have this pure view, then harming them is by far the worst worst negative karma imaginable, generating the worst negative imprints.
Harming someone who’s helped you is worse than some harming someone who hasn’t. Right? And and vice versa. Right? So you get the general drift drift, the idea.
It’s fairly makes sense. Yes. If you if you benefit someone who who benefits you, that’s well, actually, sometimes it gets tricky because if you benefit someone who who harms you, that’s even better than benefiting someone who benefits you. But if you use your intelligence, you can work it out because it’s all logical and makes sense. But if you harm someone who’s benefited you, this is far worse than harming someone who hasn’t.
Right? So then the next factor is the act itself, the way you do some so if we take the example of killing, if you kill someone, you you you have the, you know, the the intention to kill someone and you have a negative mind for of of behind it. You know, you’re not killing someone, you know, out of you know, to euthanize them or something like that. You you you’re killing them because you you know, out of attachment, anger, or ignorance, and you you you’ve got the person and everything else. But if you kill them quickly and as painlessly as possible, this is not as bad as if you, you know, you definitely set out to kill them in a way that will take a long time and it causes much pain and suffering as possible.
Obviously, this means, you you know, the mind is is in an extremely negative state and is therefore generating an extremely heavy negative imprint, a great, you know, negative potency energy. Yeah. And the the more suffering the person experiences, the worse it is. The the, yeah, the more the the greater the negative imprint is generated for oneself. But the more negative the affect on the other, the greater the effect the eventual effect to oneself.
And then the final factor determining factor that determines whether one is creating a throwing karma or a completing karma is whether the act itself is completed. So if, you know, I may have the intention to kill someone, I’ve got the thought to do so, I try to do it, but the person doesn’t die. I shoot them or stab them or whatever, but they don’t die. So that isn’t the karma of killing, because they didn’t die. And if you die before the per you know, you you you shoot someone and they die, but you die before they die, you don’t get the complete karma of killing.
So and the other very significant part about this factor is that there’s not only the actual physical act of completing the action, but also what what is equally as well, equally important is the state of mind you’re in when the action is completed. So if you kill someone and they die and you are happy about it, you’re satisfied that, you know, I’ve I’ve done what I wanted. So that completes it. That makes it completely negative, a hundred percent negative, and therefore, the biggest negative imprint. Alright.
But if you kill the person and they die and you know it and you’re still alive and immediately as as it happens, you regret it, then the imprint isn’t as strong. The energy isn’t as strong. And similarly, you do a virtuous thing and you’re happy, you know, you complete it and you’re happy that you’ve done it, then that makes it, you know, a hundred percent positive, powerful imprint. But as soon as you do it, you regret it, you kind of blown it. You’ve done a virtuous action, positive imprint, but not very strong because you’ve regretted it.
So, you know, if you think about it, there’s many, many permutations of all those things. You can do what is an act which is virtuous, but you can like, meditating is a virtuous act, basically. But you can do it with a completely negative motivation. So many, many, you know, permutations there. Or you can do with no motivation.
You just do it. Everyone else is doing it. Oh, I suppose. Oh, okay. You know, not really any thought behind it at all.
And the way you’re doing it, you know, some people who meditate really carefully, you know, conscientiously trying to be concentrated. Otherwise, you’re sitting there, the mind’s all over, you’re not trying to do anything. So the act, you know, is not done well. So the imprint isn’t very strong. Finished it.
Don’t finished. Glad I finished that. Glad you finished. Not glad that you did it. It’s not a very positive imprint.
So many, many permutations possible. But anyway, if all of the four factors are present and they’re all very strong then one creates a throwing karma. And that, if it’s not destroyed or purified, that at some point will ripen in some life at the time of death to bring its result. So if it’s a negative throwing karma, it brings a nonhuman rebirth because, yeah, a negative throwing karma can’t bring a human rebirth because a human rebirth, even the the most suffering ones, are much better than the three lower realm rebirths. A human rebirth is the result bye bye.
Is the result of good karma, good actions. The lower realms are the result of negative actions. And, yeah, the lower god realms also the the to be reborn as a desire realm god, this is the result of virtuous actions. To be born in the the form and formless realms, there is a very specific course for that, which is you have to develop a high level of Samādhi. And that that that is the only cause to be reborn in the form and formless realms, not just doing good things.
Anyway, some questions? We’ve had that question already, I think, twice. Like, because as I said, each of every sentient being has positive and negative imprints, positive and negative throwing karmas, and they have to if they’re not destroyed or purified, they have to ripen. So even beings in the lower realms have positive imprints and and the negative karma of being in a lower realm, you know, runs out, they die, and there’s always the chance that a positive imprint will ripen. And that’s how, generally speaking, they can get out.
But even in the lower realms, some sentient beings are able to do good things exceptionally, even even there. No. But once they’re reborn a human being, there’s a chance, and the the their karmic imprints of having study met the dharma before can ripen. Yes. Yes.
These are whose children? Right, right. Of who? For you? Possibly.
Yes. I mean but the way you experience something is not necessarily what they’re experiencing, but possibly it is if it was so positive. It’s possible that it’s because they left in a very pure state of mind in such a way that you were somehow affected by it. So maybe that was very good throw even good throwing karma that they had a very good rebirth possible. I I yes.
I I don’t really know. What? Well, when a person dies, a throwing karma ripens, you know, yes, because they’re thrown into the next life by the ripening of that karma. This is all explained in what are called the twelve dependent links, the twelve links of dependent origination. At the time of death, a throwing karma ripens. Alright.
Yes. Yes. Oh, I’m gonna that takes quite a long time to explain. It’s got a whole class. Yeah.
Very quickly, the main thing is to generate regret, genuine regret. That’s that’s that’s the key element. The key element. Not guilt, but genuine regret that comes from recognizing that this is negative. It’s gonna bring suffering.
How unfortunate. And also having the determination not to do such things in the future. But the main thing is regret. Anyway, just very quickly so if if we engage in a negative action or a positive action where all the four factors the four factors are not present or even if they are, they’re they’re they’re very kind of weak, not very strong. You know, the motivation wasn’t very strong.
The object wasn’t very significant. The way we did it wasn’t very good. And, you know, it was completed, but just just managed to be completed and we weren’t particularly, you know, happy about something bad or rejoicing in something good. Then in those cases, we don’t create a throwing karma. We create a completing karma, and that ripens within a life.
Okay? But the throwing karmas, when they ripen at the time of death, I I I haven’t got time to explain all this properly tonight. Just introduce just very quickly. A throwing karma has each each throwing karma. We we’ll take the example of killing.
If we kill a human being, right, with all the four factors, we create a throwing karma, extremely negative throwing karma of killing a human being. So that one karma, karmic imprint, when it ripens brings four different results. And one result is that one is reborn in the lower realms because you can’t be reborn as as a human or in the god realms as a result of the negative actions. So by killing a human being as you know, in in with all the four factors present strongly, that throwing karma at the time of death ripens and one is reborn in one of the lower realms depending on how negative that action was. Right?
You could be reborn an animal, a hungry ghost, or particularly in the hell realms. And that karma ripens. You know, you you’re reborn in that realm in a particular body, and then you die. And you may get reborn in the hell realms or the lower realms again and again for many lives. But at some point, one is reborn as a human being again due to good karma, good throwing karma.
And when you’re reborn as a human being again due to good throwing karma, the the other three results of that one negative throwing karma can then start to ripen. Okay? So the other results are the result similar to the cause. So in in the case of killing, the result similar to the cause is when one is reborn as a human being again, one will experience a result similar to the cause of having killed. So the result similar to the cause of killing is you could get killed, you could get murdered.
But other examples are that one could have a very short life or one has a lot of disease and sickness or a very just a generally very, very unhealthy body or a very weak body. You know, some people have very, very little energy their whole life, find it very difficult to do anything. So these can all be the results of having of having killed someone in a previous life. So that’s the result similar to the cause. Then there is the the result similar to the experience, which is the habit, that one has the habit as a human being to do that kind of action again even though in this particular life there’s not much reason to.
When you kill the person in the previous life, there may have been a very obvious not saying it’s a good reason, but or justify, but you had a conscious reason for killing. But but then there’s the imprint of that that in of killing. And one aspect of when that imprint ripens is that you have the tendency to kill and for no necessarily particular reason. And like the extreme case, like serial killers, would say, are people who have this incredible urge to kill people for you know, they don’t even know the people, but they have to kill them. Or, you know, kleptomaniacs who steal things for no they they don’t have to steal, but they have this, this incredible urge to steal something.
They may have tons of money themselves, and they go and steal some ordinary thing that they can’t control themselves because there’s that energy ripening, pushing them. So that’s the result similar to the cause. No. The the experience the habit. And might I’ll leave that for the time being.
Then there’s another result, which is the environmental result, which is one is reborn into a place that, yeah, is reflects the nature of the action you did. So for example, in the case of killing, the environmental so the one result is when you kill as you were born in the lower realms, but when you get reborn as a human being again and that karma the the other parts of that karma are still there to ripen, the environmental result is one is born into a place which is extremely violent, where there’s lots of brutality, killing, great lots of disease, and also in a place where it says that even the food you eat has very little nourishment, and even the medicine has very little curative power. And with all due respect, there are places like India, which is like that, where the food, if you live in India for very long, people usually get quite weak because the food just doesn’t have much nourishment. And a lot of medicine in India and in many so called third world countries is just poisonous. It’s just it’s not medicine.
So you know? And this it makes some kind of sense that you take life from people. Then when you have a human life, everything around you is kind of negating your life. There’s violence and brutality, disease. Even the food you eat doesn’t sustain your life.
If you get sick, the medicine you take doesn’t help you. And this is all the effect of one action. So it spreads out over many lives. In one life, you’ll be reborn in the lower realms. Then when you manage to become a human being as a result of good karma, then there’s the result similar to the cause, the environmental result, and the habit.
They could all occur in one life, one human life, but they could be spread over many human lives. And my teacher, Lama Zopa Rinpoche, says of all those four results, the worst one is the habit. Because, for example, you kill someone and you fall into the lower realms, get reborn a human being again, and experience the results similar to the cause of being killed or having lots of sickness and problems and born in a horrible place. But you have the habit. And so you kill again.
And so you fall into the lower realms again, become a human when you become a human being again, you have you have you get killed again. You get born in a horrible environment, and you’ve got the habit even stronger. And because of that, you kill again, and all of these horrible things happen. And this is how saṃsāra goes on. The wheel of cyclic existence just goes on and on and on and on.
That’s why understanding the law of cause and effect is so important and, you know, avoiding negative actions is so important and purifying the negative imprints is so important. Yes. You will have the habit to be virtuous, to not to kill, you know, to, you know, not to steal, you know, not to engage in sexual misconduct. You’ll have the habit, and you will you will result get the the results similar to the cause of, like, of not killing. You you have a very healthy body, a very strong body, a lot of vitality.
You live a long life and so on. And you’re born in a very peaceful, beautiful environment. So it gets better and better. So that’s a go. Okay.
We’ve run out of time. We have to finish. Thank you very much for your patience. I hope I said something to get you thinking, checking up. Why do do things happen?
Why do they happen to you? Also, can it’s very good to check from your own side, your own life. And but also sometimes you can see in other people how karma is working. Or just in his historical examples. Certainly, our history.
Because also there’s individual karma and there’s group karma. You know? A group of people experience something together because they’ve all created the cause, you know, a similar action in the past. They may have done it separately in different countries, in different places, even in different universes, but they’ve all engaged in the same kind of action. And then somehow, they’re all in the same place together, and you experience the same thing.
Yeah. That’s collective karma or the people in the country. Yeah. I mean, you can think of, like oh, sorry. I bet you know, I was just very quickly, like, the the horrible situation developed in what was had been Yugoslavia, And those countries broke up, and they had been fairly peaceful, civilized places.
And then this horrible fighting broke out. Yeah. And then it went on and on. Yes. But Buddhists are human beings.
They’re sentient beings with lots of negative imprints. No one’s saying Buddhists are any better than anyone else. Of course, it happens everywhere. Buddhists murder, steal, rob, rape, do everything. Not the good ones, the bad ones, but they’re Buddhists.
And some of the those Buddhists regret it and apply the four opponent powers and become highly realized beings, like Angulimala who killed nine hundred and ninety nine people. And then the Buddha told him, this is not a good idea. And he became an arhat. So we can oh, okay. So we may have created a good throwing karma tonight because hopefully we had a good motivation.
Right? And we had the the the one of the best objects possible, which is the dharma. And hopefully you listened in a really good way. So the act was really good. And then, you know, there’s the completion that you are happy not to have completed it, but the yeah.
You’re happy that you completed it. Yeah? You and rejoiced. So that makes we have created a complete virtuous throwing karma tonight that will bring a good rebirth. So to make sure it doesn’t get wiped out from our consciousness, we have to dedicate it and dedicate it to the best possible result and which is enlightenment.
So if you’d like to join in we can do this. Page seven is it? No. Twelve? Yes.
Thirty yeah. Twelve. Due to the merits of these virtuous actions, may I quickly attain the state of a guru Buddha and lead all living beings without exception into that enlightened state. May the precious body mind not yet born arise and grow. May that born have no decline but increase forevermore.
So, yeah, I hope everyone has put in their homework, and there’s news for those who haven’t collected it. There is the this week’s homework there. Hope it makes some sense. Just try and do, you know, the meditations that you can do and repeat them. Don’t the ones you don’t make don’t make any sense.
Just leave them and do some meditation. Just even the nine round breathing. At least do that. Okay. Thank you.