Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 114-minute session, Ven Thubten Dondrub introduces the law of cause and effect—one of Buddhism’s most foundational teachings—to a mixed-experience group at Buddha House. He begins by establishing the broader Mahāyāna context: the purpose of studying Buddhist teachings is not intellectual entertainment but practical transformation guided by bodhicitta, the aspiration to achieve enlightenment for the sake of all beings. From there he moves into karma proper, explaining that mind itself—formless, knowing, and beginningless—is the ultimate basis of all experience, and that karmic imprints generated by intentional thought ripen into results far more powerful than their initial cause. He walks through the four defining principles of karma (nature determines result; result requires cause; imprints never fade; results vastly exceed effort), the four determining factors that govern imprint strength (motivation, object, action, completion), and introduces the concept of throwing karma—the single powerful action that determines rebirth. Throughout, he uses concrete examples (the tomato seed analogy, killing and its consequences across lifetimes) and addresses the six realms of saṃsāra, the purification of negative imprints via the four opponent powers, and why understanding this can be liberating rather than depressing. Aimed at newcomers and returning students willing to apply teachings to daily life.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 2015 09 08 DB All about Karma Week 1 08092015.mp3
UUID: fda10624-3100-43c7-be8a-9cab668aac90
Teacher: Ven Thubten Dondrub
Collection: DB All about Karma (Ven Thubten Dondrub)
Date: 2015-09-08
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 113.6 minutes
Words: ~12,481
Sit down. Underneath this too. Good evening, everyone. Welcome to Buddha House. If you’ve never been before or if you’re an infrequent visitor.
And welcome to this first class on all about karma. I don’t think it’ll be all about karma. It’ll be something about karma. It’s a very big subject. So I hope everyone has had a chance to listen to no.
Read. Do they read or listen to listen to the introductory talk about the Discovering Buddhism program that everyone do they get that? No. They don’t get it until Some people might have had it, but in fact, they just would like to that, might might have got it. Oh, okay.
Tomorrow. But some as Okay. So there is an introductory talk that I request people to ideally listen to before we start this course because it it just prepares people for the purpose of this course. So I’ll try not to talk about that now. So, all of the Discovering Buddhism courses are taught in the context of Mahāyāna Buddhism, which is about encouraging us to realize our Buddha potential for the sake of all sentient beings.
So at the beginning of teachings, especially if one is very new to the Dharma, then one listens to the teachings for the purpose of discovering whether one has some connection with them, whether what the Buddha was talking about makes some resonance with oneself and by studying the teachings more and more, one can develop either feel that one does have a connection with the teachings and wants to follow these in one’s life because they bring great benefit and meaning to one’s life and help one to be of great benefit to others. Or one may decide that the Buddha’s teachings aren’t really for oneself. But if one then decides one wants to really follow the teachings more and more, feeling that they really do make a lot of sense and can give a great deal of meaning to one’s life, then the purpose for studying the teachings more and more is to develop a deeper understanding of them in order to be able to apply them in one’s daily life. So the real purpose of the Buddha’s teachings is to put them into practice, not just to come along and just listen to the teachings and be entertained by them, but the purpose of them is to practice them.
The real purpose of practicing the Buddha’s teachings is not just for some benefit in this life, because of course one of the fundamental aspects of the Buddha’s teachings is that it talks about how all of the Buddha’s teachings are about our mind, and our mind is something which has no beginning and has no end. It goes on forever, and so we have many, many future lives to consider. So the Buddhist teachings are not so much about using the teachings for some benefit just for this life, because the mind goes on and we have to consider future existences. So the purpose of the Buddha’s teachings is to help us prepare, at the very least, our next life so that we have a good rebirth, not a bad suffering rebirth. But more than that, as we study the Buddhist teachings, can begin to understand that we are stuck in saṃsāra.
And saṃsāra is not a good place to be stuck in and not a good situation to be stuck in. That even if we manage to get good rebirths again and again, which is something very difficult to achieve, we still have to experience a lot of suffering. We don’t escape suffering while our mind is controlled by delusion and karma. So then a deeper motivation for practicing the Buddhist teachings is not just to have a good rebirth, but to free ourselves from suffering altogether. But then the final, deepest motivation we can develop for studying the Buddhist teachings, which is what is emphasized in the Mahāyāna tradition, is to awaken the full potential of our mind and achieve the enlightened state of Buddhahood in order to benefit others, to repay the kindness of others.
Because if we start to think about it, which unfortunately we don’t do most of the time, we can start to realise that if we take just this life, our existence in this life totally depends on as interconnected with the existence of all other living beings, all other sentient beings, either directly or indirectly. Just to survive, we depend on others in all sorts of ways that most of the time we’re completely unaware of. But in addition to that, all the good experiences we have in this life, ordinary good experiences, spiritual good experiences, they all arise depending on the existence of other sentient beings, either directly or indirectly. And all the good qualities and skills we develop, ordinary and spiritual, we can only develop depending on the existence of other sentient beings and their kindness. What the Mahāyāna teachings of the Buddha particularly emphasizes is that because our mind is beginningless, we’ve had an infinite number of rebirths, which means we’ve had an infinite number of previous mothers, which according to Buddhist mathematics means that every sentient being that exists has been our mother and not just one time, but many, many times.
So every sentient being is immensely kind to us. So we have this, it’s inconceivable how much we owe to sentient beings. So the more we think about that, which the Mahāyāna teachings encourage us to do, we can develop this wish to repay that kindness and one can come to the conclusion that the only valid way, the only meaningful way to repay the kindness of others is to help them achieve what we ourselves want to achieve and what do we want to achieve. Each of us wants to be happy. That’s all we really want is to be happy.
And we don’t want to suffer. We don’t want any kind of suffering and we want to experience happiness. And if we think about it, the happiness we want is not just something superficial and temporary. Deep down, what we are really seeking is a happiness or an experience which we, for want of a better word, we label happiness. But what we are all seeking is an experience that is complete and perfect and everlasting.
So just as we want that, that experience which is perfect, complete and everlasting and free of suffering, every sentient being wants exactly the same. So the only valid way, the only meaningful way to repay the kindness of others is to help them achieve that state because nothing else really repays the kindness of other sentient beings. So this is the aim of the Mahāyāna teachings of the Buddha, let us know that we have this amazing potential within us, this Buddha potential, and Mahāyāna teachings show us the method whereby we can step by step free our mind of all limitations and awaken this Buddha potential. And by awakening that Buddha potential, we not only achieve what we have been seeking unconsciously, life after life, but we can help every sentient being achieve that perfect state and repay their kindness. And leading a life devoted to benefiting others is the most meaningful thing that we can possibly do.
So this motivation to achieve enlightenment in order to help every sentient being to become free of suffering, to help every sentient being achieve a peerless everlasting happiness is called bodhicitta. So this is the motivation that we’re encouraged to listen to the teachings with as much as possible. So this is what I would encourage people to do now. So there is a traditional prayer that I say because as a Buddhist monk, I more or less have to say it at the beginning of the teachings. And those people who have taken refuge also have some responsibility to say this prayer.
The others don’t, but you can you’re most welcome to join in this prayer. So it’s in your student material on page twelve. So we do it here at the center twice in Tibetan or our Australian version of Tibetan because this helps us to connect with the tradition, and we do it one time in English for the sake of the meaning. So as one recites this prayer, to make it more meaningful, we we try and think of the Buddha in front of us as our source of refuge, inspiration, and guidance. And at the same time, we can think of the Buddha as reminding us of our Buddha nature and inspiring us to realize it.
And at the same time, we try and think of all sentient beings surrounding us, starting with our mother of this life on our left, our father on our right, and then behind us, the rest of our family and all our friends and all the people that we can think of who have been kind to us, who have helped us in any way in this life. And then in front, we think of those people who may dislike us, who may have even harmed us. And we put them there not to generate negative thoughts towards them, but to realise that these beings have been my mother in past lives, have been kind to me in so many ways, life after life. And they’re suffering like everyone else, so they deserve my compassion, not my aversion or indifference. And then as much as possible, we try and think of all other sentient beings, at least the human beings of this world, and dedicate our practice to achieving enlightenment for their sake.
So if you’d like to join in this prayer, please do so. At least try and generate your own good motivation for being here tonight. I go for refuge until I’m enlightened to the Buddha, Dharma, the Supreme Assembly. By the merits I create through listening to the Dharma, may I become a Buddha in order to benefit all sentient beings. So then if you find it helpful, one can imagine that Buddha is very pleased with your motivation and shows this by now coming towards the crown of your head.
And then when directly above your crown, you imagine that the Buddha then dissolves into blissful golden light, and that light pours down into you, blessing your mind. And then just for a very short time, we can do some simple breathing meditation if those people who know how can do the nine round breathing exercise just to help the mind become a little bit more calm, clearer, more concentrated so that we can use that more focused mind to listen to and think about the Buddhist teachings tonight. K. Thank you. Okay.
So the teaching of karma, the law of cause and effect. Can you all hear me okay? Yeah? Okay. It’s one of the most important teachings of the Buddha.
It actually, all of the the other teachings of the Buddha are somehow connected to the law of cause and effect. So the more we understand this teaching, the more we can understand all aspects of the Buddhist teachings. If one wants to follow the Buddhist teachings, then the very basis of one’s practice is observing the law of cause and effect in one’s daily life. Because basically the Buddhist teachings about moving away from suffering, avoiding suffering, and enhancing one’s life so that there is more happiness, contentment, and well-being. And the way to achieve that is to observe the law of cause and effect, because the teaching is saying if we engage in negative actions, we’re only going to experience suffering.
So if we don’t want suffering, we have to stop creating the cause. If we want to experience happiness, we have to create the causes for it, because happiness just doesn’t happen mysteriously. It has causes, and has very specific causes. Just because you think one’s creating the cause for happiness, it doesn’t mean one experiences happiness, because it may not be the proper cause. Just because one’s doing something that may look like it’s going to bring about happiness doesn’t mean it will.
So there are three very fundamental teachings of the Buddha that are all interconnected. Actually, all of the Buddha’s teachings are interconnected, but really there are three that really very particularly connected. Anyway, these are the teachings on the mind, the teaching on the law of cause and effect, and the teaching about the nature of reality, which is the most profound aspect of the Buddhist teachings. So all of these things, to really understand the law of cause and effect, one really needs to understand something about the Buddhist view of mind and the Buddhist view of the nature of reality. I just wanted, for those people who are new here, there are some people fairly new to Buddhism here or not?
Yes. Right. Okay. So all of the Buddhist teachings are about the mind. This is the unique feature of the Buddhist teachings.
It’s all about the mind. And the mind we we have this term in English, the mind, but we use it in a very strange way. And We use it as though we all know what the mind is, but, you know, the way it’s used is very, very confusing. And often in our culture, it is used to be synonymous with the brain. But the mind is not the brain according to Buddhism, and it’s not a byproduct of the brain.
The mind is a unique phenomenon that is maybe very difficult to understand, and I’m not going to try and explain it in this talk, but the definition of mind in Buddhism is very simple. The definition is the mind is that which is clear and knowing. The mind is something completely formless. It is not something physical at all. It has none of the characteristics of physical matter because it isn’t physical matter.
So you can’t see it, you can’t taste smell it, touch it, it has no shape, no dimension, but it exists. And from a Buddhist point of view, it’s the most important thing that exists in the universe because the only way we know other things exist is because of the mind, because that’s what the mind does. It knows experiences, and only the mind does that. There is no other phenomena that remotely approaches having that facility, that ability to know and experience. We all have a sense of self, particular personal identity.
We always think about me, me, me all the time. The only way we have that sense of me is because we have the mind. Right. How do we know about me because it’s our mind that knows? And we all have a body, this lump of stuff here.
How do we know we’ve got a body with our mind? Yeah. And then we know other people and external stuff, the external world. How is that done? It is done via the mind, not the brain via the mind.
So the mind is like space. It exists, but it is completely fullness. And like space, it is indestructible. You can’t damage space in any way. You know, you can’t chop space up into little bits.
You can’t bruise it. You can’t damage it. The space doesn’t go rusty or fall apart. It’s always there, pristine, perfect, all the time. There’s nothing you can do about space.
It’s just there. And the mind is like that. The mind just has always existed and always will exist. It will never ever stop. This body stops.
It rots, it falls apart sooner or later. That’s absolutely guaranteed. But the mind that inhabits this body doesn’t stop. It’s constantly giving rise to experience all the time. It’s always knowing something all the time.
And with that momentary arising of experience, there’s always a feeling that occurs with it. We know things with feelings. So there’s always, when we know something, there is always a pleasant feeling or a unpleasant feeling or there is a neutral feeling. And a neutral feeling is not a lack of feeling, it is a neutral feeling, which is neither pleasant nor unpleasant, neither suffering nor happiness. Neutral feelings aren’t such a problem.
The main ones we’re concerned are the pleasant ones and the unpleasant feelings. And just very briefly, the Buddhist view is that our mind, in its very nature, is pure and is perfect. Every mind possesses every good quality. This is how one could say is our Buddha nature. That every mind has every conceivable good quality.
There isn’t one mind that is lacking any of these qualities. But and the the nature of our mind is also completely blissful. That is part of our Buddha potential. But unfortunately, our mind is obscured. All these wonderful qualities are obscured.
And they’re obscured by various disturbing thoughts, particularly attachment, afflicted desire and anger, but also pride and jealousy and a whole range of disturbing thoughts. And these all exist because of a fundamental disturbing thought called ignorance, which prevents our mind from experiencing ourself as we actually are. It creates an illusion about the whole a false appearance of the way all things exist. So that mind, obscured by delusion and karma, that mind is called saṃsāra. And the purpose of the Buddha’s teachings is to help us become free of saṃsāra because saṃsāra is suffering.
The very first teaching the Buddha gave is the teaching of the four noble truths. The first noble truth is that ordinary existence is in its very nature suffering, And what ordinary existence refers to is samsaric existence, having a mind, which we all have, which is under the control of delusion and karma. That existence is in its nature suffering. So the Buddha appeared in this world to show us how we can free our mind of all these things which are obscuring us and which cause us to suffer. Because the very nature of our mind, the Buddha discovered, is blissful.
This perfect happiness that deep down we’re always seeking, which we always look for in the external world, in relationships with other people, in money and possessions and prestige and power and reputation and blah blah blah. We look for happiness in those things, but it’s just not there. One can’t find perfect lasting happiness in all these external things. Where it is, is actually within the very nature of our mind. This perfect bliss resides within the very nature of our mind all the time.
So the purpose of the Buddha’s teachings is to help us discover that and free our mind from all that is obscuring it. So those things which obscure the mind are right. Let’s leave that for the time being. Yeah. Okay.
Yes. Alright. Now the law of cause and effect. That’s the mind for the time being. A small introduction to the mind from a Buddhist point of view.
So the law of cause and effect is really explaining how our mind works. How the mind works. So, of course, there is a law of cause and effect relating to the way just ordinary phenomena work that if what? That explains all all the laws of science and etcetera. But so these are connected to the Buddhist view of the law of cause and effect.
But the law of cause and effect is not talking so much about how physical phenomena work, but how the mind works to give rise to experience. Particularly what the law of cause and effect is talking about is is talking about how for a particular experience to occur in the mind, there has to be a cause for it. And yes. There has to be a cause for it. Put it this way.
At any point in time, our mind is experiencing something, and with that experience there is some particular kind of feeling occurring. But then at some point, that experience changes. There is another experience that replaces the one that was occurring. And when that experience changes, there is a change of feeling. So the Buddha says, for that to happen, there has to be a cause.
And since it is the mind that is experiencing that change, the cause for the mind to change, to experience something else with a new feeling that goes with that, the cause doesn’t come from the external world, but it comes from within the mind itself. We tend to believe that it’s the external world that impinges on us. That happiness and suffering come from external things, from other people and just the external world in general. The Buddha says this is not the case. It may look like that, but what we call external causes are just conditions for things to happen.
The real cause comes from within the mind. What causes the mind to change is something coming from within the mind. And particularly what is causing the mind to change are these karmic potentials. Because every time our mind generates various thoughts, good and bad, at the same time these karmic imprints are generated. When these karmic imprints ripen, then they force the mind to have a new experience and a new feeling.
So this is what the law of cause and effect is really about, about how our mind generates these karmic potentials. And when the external conditions come about, these karmic potentials ripen and they produce their result. To try and explain this, some of you have heard my wonderful analogy before, but I have this great analogy, I think, of growing tomatoes. So if you are given a packet of tomato seeds and you just leave your packet of tomato seeds on the windowsill or on your table, you will never get tomatoes. If you just leave the tomato seeds in the packet, even no matter how much you pray for the tomatoes to come, nothing is going to happen.
Also, if in my wonderful analogy, someone gives you a box of soil invented by the CSIRO, the best tomato growing soil in the entire world, and all the perfect conditions of moisture and sunlight for growing tomatoes, but there are no seeds in the soil. You won’t get tomatoes, right? You need tomato seeds and tomato conditions, right? You need both. Now which is more important, the seeds or the conditions?
Some people would argue that they’re both equally important. You do need both, but some would say that the seeds and the conditions are equally important, but they are not equally important. The seeds are the most important because if you take if you have the box of soil this big, yeah, it’s only where you put the tomato seeds that the tomato bush will grow. Even though everywhere is the perfect conditions for the tomatoes, it’s only where the seeds are that the tomato will grow. So this shows that the seed is vital to get the result.
If you don’t have the seed, you won’t get the result, even if the conditions are there. All the conditions are there, but the seed isn’t there, you don’t get the result. In other words, if seed isn’t in the mind, you won’t get the result. Even if there’s all the conditions in the external world for suffering, if we don’t have the inner cause for suffering or a particular kind of suffering, we won’t experience it. If all the conditions exist in the external world for a particular good experience to arise, if we don’t have the inner cause, we won’t get that good experience.
Or to give a more direct analogy, example, right now I am blabbing, you know, there’s this one mouth, this one person talking, just saying one thing, but what you are hearing, what you’re understanding totally depends on your mind and your inner experiences. What you get out of this depends on your mind and the imprints in your mind. One noise is coming out, but no questions yet, please. Yeah. So the first factor of the law of cause and effect is that The nature of the cause determines the nature of the result.
So if one engages in a negative action, one will definitely generate a negative karmic potential in the mind, and that negative karmic potential will always produce a suffering result. That is definite. It never changes. This it never changes within any individual’s mind, and and it’s the same for all minds. Because all our minds are different.
We all have separate minds. But all our minds are the same. They’re the same but different. They’re separate but the same in nature. And they all work in the same way.
So the first aspect of the law of cause and effect is that the nature of the cause determines the nature of the result. The Buddha himself said, A bitter seed always produces a bitter fruit. A sweet seed always produces a sweet result. So a negative action or a non virtuous action of mind always produces a negative imprint which always ripens as suffering. And a virtuous action motivated by a virtuous state of mind always generates a positive karmic imprint, a karmic potential, and that always produces a good result.
Of course, the question arises of what defines good and bad, virtue and non virtue, because different cultures have different interpretations and even different within a culture, is considered good at one time varies. But from a Buddhist point of view, there is a universal, unchanging standard for what determines right and wrong, good and bad, and that is the mind itself. Because the Buddhist view is that the mind itself, the true nature of our mind, is pure and perfect and blissful. So anything that is obscuring that, preventing those positive qualities and bliss of the mind to manifest, that is negative to our mind. It is negative and it is producing suffering.
It is producing something that is less than perfect and blissful. That is something unsatisfactory and suffering. Whereas anything that is a manifestation of the true nature of our mind, such as love and compassion and wisdom and generosity, those, because they are true reflections of our mind, bring about happiness. And so they are positive or virtuous states of mind. According to the law of cause and effect, we talk about actions of bodies, karma, actions created by the body, by speech and mind.
But of course, all of our speech is motivated by our mind. All our physical actions are motivated by mind. So ultimately, the law of cause and effect is really talking about how our mind operates. So the word karma just simply means action or activity, and it’s referring to the activity of the mind, and it’s particularly referring to thought. Intentional thought is karma.
So because of our intentional thought, we say things, or we think things, we say things, we do things, and every time that that happens, these these karmic potencies are generated in the mind. And those karmic potencies, depending on what motivates them, will bring the particular result. So that is something definite. This is what the Buddha discovered. This is what the Buddha taught.
Second factor of the law of cause and effect is that to experience a particular result or to experience a particular effect, there has to be a cause. Alright? If one is experiencing some kind of suffering, then there is a cause for that. Oneself, in the sense that one’s mind at some previous time, either earlier in this life or in a previous life, the mind created the cause for that result, that effect now. And if one isn’t experiencing a particular result, it means one hasn’t created the cause for it.
And The third fundamental aspect of the law of cause and effect is that once the imprint has been generated the mind stream, that imprint will remain until as long as it takes for all the conditions to come about for that imprint to ripen and produce its result. That imprint is never lost. It doesn’t just sort of fade away due to time. So one can engage in a virtuous action in this life and it may take many, many lifetimes before the karmic imprint ripens because it needs the conditions to come together. But once the conditions come together, then the imprint ripens.
So, yeah, karma is never these imprints are never lost. They don’t fade away mysteriously. For this reason, in the teachings that emphasizes, we should be really careful about engaging in negative actions because once we’ve generated that negative action, the negative imprint is generated and it will sooner or later bring its result. But also we can have confidence that having engaged in a virtuous action, then definitely a positive imprint is generated, so at some point it will also bring its result. And it’s important to relate that to the fourth fundamental aspect of the law of cause and effect, is that when these imprints ripen, the result that comes lasts for a far greater period of time than the energy that goes into creating a karmic imprint.
Like a karmic imprint can be generated like in a finger snap. You know, one could get angry and in a finger snap, a karmic imprint can be ripened, can be generated. But when that karmic imprint ripens, the effect can last a whole lifetime, or even many lifetimes. Also it’s important to understand that when we engage in an action, good or bad, of course, there is always some result in this life. There’s no question of that.
And it doesn’t require a Buddha to appear in the world to tell us that things we do in this life have some effect in this life. Right? But what the Buddhist teachings on the law of cause and effect are saying is that the future is start again. It’s always easier to talk about negative things, but for example, if we do some really negative action in this life, such as harming another person, then there’s going to be some results in this life. Probably some trouble with the law.
We may end up being thrown in jail or something. So there’s definitely some results in this life. But there is also a karmic imprint generated because of that negative action. And one really important thing to understand is that these karmic imprints that we generate in any particular life, for example, in this life, the imprints that we generate in this life, good and bad, normally don’t ripen in this life. Because for many reasons.
But partly because, mainly because this life is if if you think about any particular life, it is made up of many, many experiences on a whole continuous, you know, evolution of different experiences occurring day by day, you say, that’s my life or that’s this person’s life. This happened and this happened and this happened and this happened one after the other. You know, on top of all of that, you call that a person’s life. And all of those experiences are due to karma ripening, good and bad. Yeah?
So there’s a whole lot of karmic imprints that ripen to make up a life. So they’re all sort of in a sense waiting to ripen. You know, we all have some vague idea, maybe not such a vague idea, of what we’re going to do after this class. You know, we’re gonna get in the car, drive home, and do that. We assume that this will happen, but who knows what will happen, what will actually happen.
Some interesting karma might ripen on the way home. Yeah. What did John Lennon once say? Life happens when you’re thinking about other things or plan. What was it?
It’s not not physical happens when the Life is what happens when you’re making other plans. That’s yeah. Yes. Like that. Yes.
Yes. Yeah. So yeah. You just we just don’t know. Anyway, so there’s a whole pile of karmic imprints just waiting, you know, ready to ripen.
So there’s not in a sense, there’s no space for the karmic imprints we create in this life to ripen. There’s a whole lot already just waiting to yeah. Definitely what we do in this life has some effect in this life, but that isn’t due to the karmic imprint. As well as what happens to us in this life from doing things in this life, we generate these karmic imprints, And these karmic imprints normally don’t ripen until a future life. And when they do, the Buddha said that the result is far, far, far greater.
So this is what we have to be concerned about, particularly in relation to the negative ones. Because with the good ones, we don’t have to worry about that. We get these fantastic good results. But it’s with the negative actions that the result is far, far worse than anything that can happen in this life. Because, now we come to the gruesome bit.
Yes, Right. Sorry, I have to talk about this. This is very important. Yeah. So saṃsāra is defined as the mind controlled by well, one definition is that it’s the mind controlled by delusion and karma.
But because our mind is controlled by delusion and karma, our mind can give rise to all sorts of experiences due to the karmic imprints we put in our mind. So right now we’re experiencing this life, this human life. And but according to the Buddhist teachings, because this is what the Buddha perceived, our mind can give rise to other experiences other than the human one. So the other kind of sentient beings that we can see in this world are animals. So according to Buddhism, and I also believe this, animals have mind, so their minds are exactly the same as ours.
There is no difference. The only difference is, of course, their mind is more obscured, so they’re experiencing more suffering. But what that means is that we could be reborn as an animal. If we obscure our mind with more negative imprints, then those imprints can’t those negative imprints can’t bring the good result of a human rebirth. They can only bring a suffering rebirth, such as being born as an animal.
But according to Buddhist understanding, there are other realms of existence apart from the human and the animal realm, and there are some which are better than the human life, human existence, but some much worse. So there is a realm called the preta realm where one experiences a life of intense craving for thousands and thousands of years, where one experiences a sensation of starving and being thirsty one’s entire life. You never eat anything, but you don’t die. You’re just tormented by hunger and thirst for thousands and thousands and thousands of years. And then there’s the hell realms, And according to Buddhist teachings, there are many different kinds of hells.
There are hot hells, cold hells, occasional hells, all sorts that go on for an incredibly long time. And these are what our mind creates when it’s obscured because, you know, these karmic imprints obscure our mind. So the more obscured the mind, the darker the mind, the darker the experience, the more horrible the experience is. Then there are the god realms, where one engages in many good actions, one can take rebirth in various kinds of god realms, where one experiences lives that last much longer than any human life, where there’s this incredible beauty and happiness that lasts for thousands and thousands and millions and millions of years, but it also comes to an end. And then one takes rebirth back as a human or as an animal in the Preta realms, in the hell realms, and so one cycles.
This is saṃsāra, his cyclic existence. One dies and is reborn again and again according to the karmic imprints that one’s generated. So as a human being, we can engage in all sorts of terrible and negative actions in this life, but we can’t experience the full force of the result in this life because the karma of a human being is we can only experience as a human being and a human body, we can only experience so much pain and so much pleasure. But we can give our mind has the potential to experience much more pain, much more pleasure than what the human mind can experience. So when we engage in actions, both positive and negative, there is some result in this life, good and bad, but there are the karmic results.
And this is what the Buddha particularly appeared in this world to teach us, because the the workings of karma can’t be seen by science. The ordinary workings of karma, the law of cause and effect, that if you run over someone and drive off, then the police will come and get you. We don’t need a Buddha to explain that. This is something that one can work out for oneself. This kind of the actions that happen in this life.
If you put your hand in the fire, it’s going to burn. It doesn’t require a Buddha to explain that. But only a Buddha can see how karma, the law of cause and effect works, that these karmic imprints are generated every time we engage in thought, positive and negative, and particularly when we act on those thoughts. Any questions so far? Yes.
What factors determine when karmic imprint will ripen? The the main factor oh, when it will ripen. That that’s very difficult to say actually, but in general, general, generally general, in a very general way, is the state of your mind. When you’re in a good state of mind, your virtuous imprints are more likely to ripen. When you’re in a negative state of mind, your negative imprints are more likely to ripen.
And this is certainly true at the time of death, because at the time of death, a particular kind of karmic imprint ripens, which is called the throwing karma. And this is the karmic imprint that will determine what kind of rebirth you have. Whether that is going to be a positive or a negative throwing karma, that very much depends on the state of your mind as you are dying. So if you die in a negative state of mind with a lot of anger or attachment, then that is the breeding ground for a negative imprint, a negative throwing karma to ripen. But if one dies very peacefully with being kind and compassionate thoughts in one’s mind, that is the best condition for a really nice tomato to ripen.
Yeah. To give a good rebirth. But this is also generally true throughout one’s life. But it’s a bit more complicated throughout one’s life because, yes, it’s very complicated because karmic imprints, once they’re created, they will ripen at some point, even if one is living virtuous life. Some really nasty negative karma can still ripen.
I know this happens with great dharma practitioners. They live very virtuous lives, but in the past life they did something naughty and then the karma can ripen. But of course, if you’re living a very virtuous life, when some negative karma ripens, you can deal with it in a much more meaningful, positive way than if you’re not leading a virtuous life. The classic example in our time is what happened to Tibet. So there were many great holy beings in Tibet who had, you know, then the communists invaded and took over and did terrible things to people there and tortured them and killed them and starved them to death and all sorts of things.
Even though they were very holy beings, they experienced that suffering. So yeah, unfortunately, yeah. Right. That wasn’t very encouraging, was it? I think the thing to remember is, as I just tried to say, is that for people who are really practicing when some negative karma ripens because they are practicing and developing their minds, it doesn’t have the same terrible effect that it does for an ordinary person who hasn’t cultivated their mind.
Alright. So just quickly to go back to oh, when did we take a break? Twenty past. Twenty past. Twenty past.
We’ve got three minutes. Oh, maybe no. I’ll leave that then. There another question? Something else I can So we’ve got the six realms of saṃsāra.
Where do the Pure Lands come in? Where do the Pure Lands come in? Like, how does someone Well, I haven’t mentioned the Pure Lands, have I? So you snuck them in. Oh, I’m sorry.
But also according to yes. Well, the Pure Lands are not part of saṃsāra. You see, saṃsāra is our mind, you know, our little deluded minds controlled by delusion and karma. That is saṃsāra. So because when the mind is controlled by delusion and karma, you can only experience your mind goes through these depending on what karma you’ve created.
You can get reborn in the hell realms, god realms, and whatever. But according to Buddhism, when someone achieves enlightenment, their mind is able to Okay, let’s start again. This may be a lot to take in for the very new people, but according to Buddhist view, this world that we are experiencing is the karmic result of all sentient beings, the good karmic result of all sentient beings. This world hasn’t been created by an external divine being, a creator god. It just hasn’t just manifested from nothing.
It is the karmic result of the good actions of all sentient beings. But this human world has, because it’s the karmic result of deluded beings, it’s due to good karma, but the good karma of deluded beings. So this world has many nice things in it, but also it has all sorts of unpleasant things as well. And even the nice things can activate our delusions. You know, the beautiful things, we can have a lot of desire and attachment for them.
Even the beautiful good things can cause lots of problems for a deluded mind. Whereas a pure land is created by the pure mind of one Buddha. This is created by the impure minds of many sentient beings, this world. But a pure land is created by the one mind of one Buddha. And that that pure land is a manifestation of the mind of a Buddha, so everything in it is pure and perfect.
And so it doesn’t give rise to if you’re born in if you take rebirth in a pure land, one still has delusions. You know, you still have ignorance, you still have karma, you still have delusions, but in a pure land, your mind is able to enter into that, or in a sense, come under the influence of an enlightened mind so that you experience this incredibly beautiful environment, but where nothing activates your delusions and everything encourages you to, it activates and helps develop your positive qualities. So it seems it is possible to take rebirth in these pure lands if you work at it, if you cultivate the practices that help you do that. On that note, we’ll take a tea break, coffee break. Just before we go on, I I forgot to mention to people that, especially for the new people to the course, part of the course involves doing some homework.
So you get a homework sheet which is over here. So the idea is to either collect it in the break time or at the end of the session. Maybe good to do it in the break time so you don’t forget. And so I’d really encourage people to do the homework as much as possible. You don’t pass or fail it.
It’s just something so I can get some feedback from what you’ve understood. But also you get some little meditation homework and some reading homework and some daily mindfulness practice to do. So I really encourage people to put as much effort into that as they possibly can. Because the whole idea of this Discovering Buddhism program is not just to come and listen to a talk, but to really try to put this into practice as much as possible, as much as you feel it’s beneficial to do so. Right.
Okay. One of the things that is often emphasized in Buddhism is how it started with that it’s really important to not just blindly believe what the Buddha taught, but to check up, to investigate for oneself. And this is what the Buddha himself said, not to believe what I say because I said it, but to check up oneself. So of course, the Buddha didn’t mean that he may have been wrong and we might be able to find a completely different answer. But basically, we on having some refuge, some belief in the Buddhist teachings, we then check up from our own side and come to some logical understanding, then that that logical belief is much more stable and strong than just some blind belief in something because someone said something and you want to believe it.
So many aspects of the Buddhist teachings, I think one can check up from one’s own personal experience and through logic and so on, but some aspects of the teachings, to be honest, I think it is quite difficult and the law of cause and effect is one of those in respects. But I think especially the more one understands the teachings about the nature of mind and also about the nature of reality, how things actually exist. The more one understands those things, the more one has some logical basis for believing in the law of cause and effect. But at the moment, human beings have only come up with three explanations of why things exist, why things happen. And one of the the most common one, of course, is the theistic view that there is a creator god that has created everything and controls everything.
So I I don’t want to attack other religions or insult other religions, but this is certainly not the Buddhist view. But from a Buddhist point of view, such a being doesn’t exist. The key teaching of the Buddha is the teaching about the nature of reality, the way things actually exist. And if one starts to understand those teachings, one comes to understand that the things don’t exist the way they appear. They really simply cannot exist the way they appear.
If they did exist the way they appeared, the idea of a creator god makes some sense and that things are out there in dependence upon their own side and it makes some sense that someone created those things out there. But a lot of philosophers and scientists and certainly the Buddha have investigated things and come to an understanding that things don’t actually exist concretely out there the way they appear. And so they haven’t been created because they’re not really there the way they appear. They seem to be out there in a particular way, and they are existing, but they don’t exist as independent realities. What the Buddha discovered is that everything that exists depends on the mind.
If we didn’t have a mind, the world just simply wouldn’t exist for us. It just couldn’t exist. Or even if it did, if we didn’t have a mind, we would have no way of experiencing the world. But it’s not as though there is the world and the mind that then knows it. The mind and the world exist simultaneously.
They’re not separate things. This is what the Buddha discovered. And if that’s true, and one if one studies these Buddha’s teachings, one can start to get some understanding of them, then the law of cause and effect really starts to make much more sense, that everything really does depend on our mind for its mere existence, but also the way we experience things depends on our mind. The very fact that it’s there depends on our mind, that whether we experience it as good or bad, beautiful or ugly, this or that, depends on our mind. And then one could ask, No good examples here.
But, you know, for example, different kinds of food. You know, we all have such incredibly different likes and dislikes about food. Yeah? Even in the one family, you know, the kids in one family can you know, some some like this and some can’t stand this. Yeah?
Why? Why is that? Basically the same bodies from the same parents functioning in the same way. One kid won’t eat that and thinks it’s disgusting and the other one likes it. But just in general, you know, why do we like certain things and like them so much and other people don’t?
Why are we attracted to certain people or certain things or interested in certain things that we’ve never we you know, you you we’ve never come across them before in this life, and then you meet them and think, oh, this is fantastic. Another person is totally uninterested. Now why? Why is that? Maybe it’s karma.
The why we like particular things is because of some influence from the past. But if one investigates, I think one checks that the explanation that things have to have a cause makes a lot of sense. Why, why am I experiencing this? Yeah. And and and also some people make the mistake of thinking that if you’re experiencing something bad, the law of cause and effect is saying it’s because I’m bad.
Or if you’re experiencing something good, it’s because you’re good. But it’s not really like that at all. You know, whether one when you’re good, you can still experience bad things because in the past, one engaged in negative actions. Yeah? So now the the the result comes, and bad people can experience good things because in the past, they did good things.
But as it says, once we’ve created cause, that imprint stays in the mind and it can stay there for millions of lifetimes and slowly all the conditions come together and then bingo, the result comes. The seed ripens, the potential ripens. There are two exceptions to this, as many people who’ve studied this subject before know, is that unfortunately our positive imprints can be destroyed or weakened every time we indulge in a really strong negative thought, particularly anger, every time we get really angry, that wipes out a lot of our positive imprints. But also fortunately, we can purify our negative imprints. And this is one thing that in our tradition that we’re encouraged to do.
This is something really important to do because we need to recognize that not only have we engaged in negative actions in this life, but certainly in past lives we have. And if you start to get some belief that we have lived infinite numbers of lifetimes before, it also means there has been time and the conditions for us to have done every kind of horrible thing in past lives. And so to have generated many negative imprints. So some of those negative imprints would have ripened, some would have been purified in past lives, but still many negative imprints remain in our with our mind. So it’s just very wise to use this life to purify those imprints before they ripen.
Because once they start ripening, you know, one’s stuck with the suffering result. There’s not much one can do. So the wise person uses this life to purify their mind. So the way to purify the mind is applying what are called the four opponent powers. And the idea is to try and apply those four opponent powers as soon after engaging in a negative action as possible because then it’s easier to purify it, to apply all four powers together as strongly and sincerely as possible.
So just very quickly, those four opponent powers are the power of regret, developing a sincere regret for engaging in a negative action, not developing guilt, which itself is a kind of a negative thought, because guilt usually doesn’t encourage us to do something positive. It tends to make us dwell on the negative we’ve done and just, you know, our mind tends to get darker and darker. Whereas regret is a virtuous kind of mind. It’s a type of wisdom that simply recognizes that an action is negative and it’s only going to bring a suffering result. So by having regret, there’s already some tendency to avoid that action again, which is one of the other opponent powers is to develop, to consciously develop a determination to avoid engaging in a particular negative action for as long as one can.
And to put real effort into avoiding doing that negative action, so that one can step by step overcome that habit. Another of the opponent powers is developing the mind of refuge, is refuge is when one commits oneself to following the Buddhist path, where you develop faith in the Buddha, in the Buddha’s teachings and the great practitioners of the teachings, and refuge involves making that commitment to taking care of one’s mind, recognising that one’s mind is the source of all one’s happiness and suffering. So as soon as we start to understand that, it becomes obvious that the key thing to do in life is to take care of the mind. Most of us, most of the time, spend our time and energy taking care of our body and our money and our reputation and our possessions, which is okay for this life, but in terms of our future happiness, is pointless. No matter how much we take care of this body, we’re going to die.
No matter how much we take care of our money, we’re going to lose it at death. Same with our reputation, all of these things. But what we really need to do is take care of our mind. Because the mind keeps going on and on and on. And and our mind takes with it all the imprints, positive and negative.
So it’s good to take lots of positive ones and leave the rubbish behind. So refuge is that mind that is committed to taking care of the mind and using the Buddha’s methods to do so, having developed faith that the Buddha’s methods are the perfect ones, the complete, reliable, unbetrayable methods. Because they come from the omniscient mind, which is completely all encompassing unmistaken mind. The other okay. Maybe this is getting too confusing.
So the four opponent powers. One is the power of regret. One is the power of determination. One is the power of reliance, which has two aspects. Relying on the power of refuge, and the other aspect is relying on the power of bodhicitta.
So bodhicitta is that mind, the most virtuous mind of all, that wants to be of perfect benefit to others. And it’s the complete opposite to the mind that engages in negative actions. Because the mind that engages in negative actions is always controlled by self-cherishing. Just thinking about me in a very, very limited way, having a wrong view of oneself and only thinking about what seems to benefit me right now. And when follow that mind of self-cherishing, we always do something stupid and negative.
Whereas bodhicitta is the complete opposite to self-cherishing. It’s the mind that cherishes others, that cherishes others more than self. So if we can generate that mind strongly, that is a great counter remedy to the mind that engages in negative actions. And the fourth opponent power is the power of remedy, where one does a particular virtuous action as a counter to the negative action. So if we apply those four opponent powers strongly, it is said one can purify any kind of negative action that’s been done.
Okay. So just briefly, those are the four basic aspects of the law of cause and effect, that karma is definite. If you haven’t created the cause, you don’t get the result, then the results are enduring, the karmic imprint is never lost, and the fourth aspect is when the karmic imprint ripens, the result is far greater than the initial cause. So it’s really important to reflect on these things in order to be mindful of these in our daily life. Because if we develop some belief or faith in these four aspects of karma, and if we’re able to be mindful of them in our daily life, this is what will really help us avoid engaging in negative actions.
And it also encourages us to engage in virtuous ones. This is the method. This is the method. What is gonna stop us engaging in negative actions? Why often we engage in negative actions because our mind is dominated by the thought of just now, and we don’t think about the consequences even for ourself, even later in this life.
And that is the self-cherishing thought. But if we could be aware that this action is definitely going to have a result, and it’s going to have a horrible result that is going to last for a long time, would we do it if we really believed that and we really remembered it? But the trouble is, even if we know these things at the time of engaging in negative actions, we forget them. Or we reject them because our self-cherishing is so strong that we I want this now. But it’s so important to try to develop this understanding that apart from any results in this life, we are creating these imprints, and it’s inescapable.
Whether we believe in it or not, it’s happening. Because either the Buddhist teachings are true or they’re not. And there’s a lot of indication that they are. And it doesn’t you know, whether one believes in these things or not doesn’t matter. Whether we know about them or not doesn’t matter.
The the mind is working in a particular way. And it’s not only a disaster for ourself to engage in negative actions and create future suffering for ourselves, but of course, engaging in negative actions harms others, but also by creating these negative imprints, long before they ripen, negative imprints obscure our mind. Meaning it makes it harder to engage in virtuous things, to be of benefit to others. Okay. Next point I’d like to talk about are the what I call the four determining factors.
So again, is easiest to talk about in relation to engaging in negative actions, but it does equally apply to virtuous actions. But every time we engage in, we generate a particular thought and that motivates our speech and physical actions, we generate these karmic imprints. So the strength of these karmic imprints and therefore the power of the result depends on four determining factors. And the most important one is our conscious motivation. So if we don’t have a conscious motivation to do a particular action, then even if we do a certain, like for example, we accidentally kill an insect, but there was no intention, and we didn’t even see the insect, it’s not going to make a strong negative imprint in our mind.
But if we have a conscious intention to do something, then that makes a very strong imprint. So that’s the first and main factor, our actual intention. And in terms of engaging in a negative action, it needs to be motivated by what called one of the three poisonous minds of ignorance, of attachment or anger. So for example, one may have a conscious intention to kill some sentient being, and that could be motivated by ignorance, thinking there’s nothing wrong, like people go fishing and hunting and whatever. And they do so that with no sense that there’s anything wrong with that at all.
Or one can do it out of a desire or attachment. You kill out of attachment. Or you could kill out of anger. Similarly, you may have a conscious intention to steal and you may do it out of ignorance, thinking there’s nothing wrong with stealing, especially this is only a small thing or you steal from a big company, they’re very rich, nothing wrong with that, doesn’t matter if I take this thing. No one no one there’s no actual person owning the company.
It’s a huge conglomeration, so it’s okay to steal. You can steal out of attachment, of course, or you could steal out of anger. You may not particularly want the thing, but you don’t like the person who owns it. You hate them, so you steal it to make them miserable. There’s all sorts of things, but there’s that conscious motivation and it’s motivated by one of the negative minds, one of these main disturbing thoughts.
So then the second determining factor is the object that you direct your motivation towards. So if your negative action or your action is directed to an animal, it’s not as bad as to what if we’re talking about a negative behavior, this is not as bad as directing it towards a human being because human beings although human beings and animals are sentient beings, their minds are the same, but a human being has more potential for happiness and suffering and for benefit. Harming a human being is in general worse than harming an animal. This is sort of general guidelines. Of course, you torture an animal, that’s really terrible.
It’s not that’s much worse than, like, just hitting a human being. But I I just in general, you know, if one was to do the same thing to an animal as to a human being, it’s worse to do it to a human being. Right? In general. Yeah.
And then within human beings, it’s it’s much the the you’re you’re generating a much more negative imprint in your mind, which will therefore bring a far greater suffering result. If you harm people who have been kind to you, that’s much worse than harming people who haven’t benefited you. So if you harm people who’ve been really kind to you, harming your parents because we have this strong karmic connection with our parents, if we harm people who are holy beings, who are religious practitioners, This is much worse than harming people who are not. The third factor is action itself, the way we do the particular action. So if one harms someone in a particularly nasty way, of course, that makes a much worse negative imprint.
If one does a virtuous action, but one does it in a not particularly nice way, then the positive imprint isn’t as good, isn’t as strong. And then the final factor is the completion of the action. So one may start out trying to steal something, but then you stop for some reason or someone stops you, you’re not able to complete the action, so that means that the imprint is not as strong. But if you complete the action, but then and you’re happy that you’ve done this negative action, that makes it a complete negative action. Something a really strong imprint.
Alright? If you if you engage, you complete a negative action, and as soon as you finish it, you have some regret, then the imprint isn’t as strong. If you engage in a virtuous action and you’re really happy, that makes a really strong positive imprint. But if you engage in a virtuous action and you complete it, and as soon as you complete it, you have some regret, then that means the imprint, the positive imprint isn’t as strong. So these are the four determining factors.
So in doing one action, there can be many, many results because all of those four factors can change a great deal, can vary a great deal. So if you, for some reason, you feel you have to do a negative action, you should try and do it so that the disturbing thought motivating it is not very strong and that your wish to do it is not a strong wish to do it, but feeling some obligation to do it and you don’t do it in a really nasty way, and you develop a lot of regret at the end. I’ve miraculously covered everything. I’ve I’ve maybe there’s more I should talk about tonight. This is I really charged through things tonight.
Sorry. If if you go to page seven of the general outline, It says that there are seven classes, but there are not seven classes. There’s only gonna be five classes. Five classes that I’m doing. There are because of some complications where I’m going to be away leading a retreat and various things, there are going to be two classes that I won’t be teaching but still will happen where there will be some — Cheryl will lead one class where there will be a DVD being played, On the law of cause and effect.
And then there’ll be two classes actually. Yes. DVD on the Dalai Lama. And there’ll be discussion on various points within that. Right.
Right. And the other class will be similar to that as well. Right. Anyway, tonight, I’ve tried to cover the four principles of karma and the four factors oh, and the four results. That’s what I need to talk about.
Yes. Just quickly last one on that page, Pamela. The retreat date? Retreat date? Mhmm.
It’s probably wrong. Yes. It’s not gonna be April the fourteenth. Yeah. Someone didn’t edit things.
The retreat date is Sunday, the Twenty What is it? Twenty fifth of October. Twenty fifth of October. Okay. Yeah.
The the completion. The completion, which has the the two aspects, the actual completion and the state of mind you’re in when you do it, whether you regret it or are happy of having completed it. Okay. Yeah. So just carrying on a little bit more.
Or maybe before we do that, any questions so far? Yes. If someone offended a Bodhisattva while not knowing that person is a Bodhisattva, then does this count as a as a negative non-virtuous act? Oh, yes. Definitely.
Yes. Yes. So he he will still accumulate lots of karma? Yes. Yes.
Yeah. Because, yeah, we never know what what who other people are or what level of that they’re at and, you know, so one has to be very careful. Of course, if you know there is someone, you know, special and you’re, you know, you’re nasty to them, that’s even worse, of course. Okay. So if we engage in either a positive or a negative action with all of those four determining factors present and very strongly present, that creates what is called a throwing karma.
So the throwing karmas, as I tried to explain earlier, these are the karmas that only ripen at the time of death. When one is dying, a particular throwing karma will ripen. It can either be a positive throwing karma or a negative throwing karma. They only ripen at the time of death because a full throwing karma produces four different results from one throwing karma. One throwing karma needs all the four determining factors, the conscious motivation, the object, the action, and the completion.
So that makes one throwing karma, that one throwing karma when it ripens produces four different results. So the first result is the particular kind of rebirth. So of course, if it’s a negative throwing karma, it produces a rebirth in one of the lower realms depending on how negative that throwing karma is, then how strong it is, then one gets reborn in one of the lower realms. Okay? But the trouble is once one is reborn in the lower realms, it’s very difficult to get reborn out of them because the conditions are there to engage in negative actions very easily.
As a human being, we have so much freedom to do good stuff if we want to. We have so much freedom, so many choices. Unfortunately, we often don’t take the opportunity, but the freedom is there to do all sorts of virtuous things. And even when there’s the situation where people are being nasty to us, we have a lot of freedom not to be nasty back to them. But in the lower realms, there’s very little freedom to be engaged in virtuous actions.
And the opposite, there’s all the conditions there for one’s disturbing thoughts of anger and jealousy and pride and fear and attachment to be really, really very active and strong. But It is, of course, one is able to get out of the lower realms because at some point, some good karma may be created when one was a human being, one that will eventually ripen and then one can be reborn as a human being again. When one is reborn a human being again as a result of some good throwing karma, then the other three results of this one negative action can then ripen. These results are There is what is called the results similar to the cause. We’ll go into details next week on this.
But for example, if we kill someone in this life and we don’t purify it, so that’s and we consciously kill someone with strong anger, and we do it very nastily, and the person dies, and we have no regret, so that makes a complete throwing karma. So then we die and then we get reborn in one of the lower realms. Then much later on, we get reborn as a human being again due to some good karma ripening. So as a human being, the conditions are in this world for the other three results to ripen. One of which is the result similar to the cause, which means we get killed.
We’ve created the cause to be killed ourselves, or we have a very short life, or one has a lot of sickness in this life. These are all the, in the teachings it says, these are all the karmic results of taking life, is to have a short life, to be killed oneself, or to have lots and lots of sickness. And this can also happen all in one life, or that could be spread out over many lives. Because just by killing one person, the results of that, not only do you get reborn in the lower realms, but when you’re reborn as a human being, you can experience the results similar to the cause many times. karma is very scary.
But this is what the Buddha the omniscient Buddha taught, that this is what the unobscured mind could see, that these are the results of we do. No way. No. It’s nine seventeen. I’m according to my watch.
What? What? Yes. Yes. Nine fifteen.
Oh, when do oh, when do we finish? Now. Now. Alright. Oh, I forgot.
Not nine thirty. Oh, sorry. Yes. Right. karma strikes.
Where am I? Results are listed. You have to finish the last couple of points. Yes, know, very quickly. Yeah.
So the next one is the environmental result. One is born into a particular environment that is a reflection of the type of karma that one is experiencing. So the karmic result of killing is to be born into a very violent environment where there’s lots of killing and violence. Even things like the food that exists in a particular place is not very nourishing and even the medicine doesn’t work very well. So there are places like that in the world, of course.
And then the final result, and my teacher, Lama Zopa Rinpoche, who is depicted over there in that photograph, who is the head of the FPMT organization, says the worst result actually is not being born in the lower realms, not the result similar to the cause of being killed, not the result of being born in a horrible environment. The worst result of all is the habit of doing the same action again. Because by doing the same negative action again, such as killing, you then get the four results again, one of which is the habit, so that means you kill again, and then you get the four results again. And that’s how saṃsāra goes on and on and on and on and on. Check up in your own life how much you do things by habit, even things you don’t want to do, or don’t even know why you’re doing them.
Just out of habit. On that happy note, I’ll finish for tonight. This oh, I’m sorry. I have to say this. All of this can sound very depressing, especially if it’s very new to you, but it’s not because don’t be depressed because although it’s very heavy stuff, it’s very good, it’s very liberating to know this because if we don’t know this, then we will continue to engage in negative actions and just create unknowingly create the causes of lots of suffering and confusion and have no way to do anything about it.
Once we know about this, then there’s tremendous freedom to stop doing these things. So that, you know, we should feel very lucky that we know these things and can think about them and check up and yeah. Okay. So believe it or not, we’ve created some good karma tonight, maybe even a good throwing karma because we had a good good motivation. We had the best object, which is the dharma.
Hopefully you listened in a good way and you’ve completed it, you’ve stayed, and you’re happy you’ve stayed, I hope. Alright? So that makes a really positive throwing karma. So now we can dedicate this positive throwing karma that it brings the very best result, which is enlightenment. So if you’d like to join in, there’s the dedication prayer on bottom of page twelve.
Due to the merits of these virtuous actions, may I quickly attain the state of the Guru Buddha and lead all living beings without exception into that enlightened state. May the precious bodhicitta mind not yet born arise and grow. May that born have no decline but increase forevermore. Thank you very much. Sorry I didn’t have time to explain the homework.
I hope it makes some sense, But slowly, slowly. Thank you for your patience. Hope to see you next week.