Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this two-hour karma retreat session, Venerable Thubten Dondrub guides practitioners through foundational Buddhist meditation and doctrine, beginning with detailed posture and breath-focus instruction to settle the mind, then moving into analytical reflection on the four fundamental laws of cause and effect: that every experience has a cause, that karma is definite (the nature of the cause determines the nature of the result), that karmic results vastly exceed the initial action, and that karmic imprints never fade until they ripen. He then walks practitioners through the ten non-virtuous actions—killing, stealing, sexual misconduct, lying, divisive speech, harsh speech, idle gossip, covetousness, malice, and wrong view—exploring the four factors that determine karmic potency (basis, intention, delusion, and completion), before examining how these actions produce three types of karmic results: rebirth in lower realms, experiences congruent with the cause (both psychological experience and ingrained habit), and degraded environmental conditions. Throughout, Dondrub emphasizes mindfulness in daily life and the possibility of purification through practice. Suitable for practitioners with some familiarity with Buddhist teaching.
File metadata (for organising)
File: Karma retreat am.mp3
UUID: bce33c26-a64e-4b1e-a7cb-3e39a35756dc
Teacher: Ven Thubten Dondrub
Collection: DB Karma (Ven Thubten Dondrub)
Date: 2018 (exact day not recorded)
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 122.8 minutes
Words: ~5,346
You’re on page two of the prayer book in front of you. And then, so then we I’ll ring the bell and we take a three minute silent break. And in the second segment we do some some simple analytical meditation on various topics from the what is called in Tibetan Lam Rim, the graduated path, the meditations and teachings on the graduated path to enlightenment. So to really be able to do those meditations properly one has to have studied the teachings on the topic because the meditations just give a simple outline of what to think about, but if one hasn’t studied the teachings then it doesn’t leave much to think about but we’ll leave a at least I’ll try to explain a little bit as we go along. So this morning we’ll meditate a little bit on the law of cause and effect which is the fundamental teaching of the Buddha on which all the others are based.
So we’ll think about that. So we can begin by sitting comfortably in the correct posture much as possible. So particularly paying attention to one’s spine, trying to have the spine really straight and well aligned, the upper body positioned so that it’s not leaning forwards or backwards or to either side and then just placing your legs in whatever way is comfortable. If you’re sitting in a chair it’s good not to lean against the back of the chair while you’re meditating. You place the right hand on top of the left with the thumbs lightly touching, your hands resting in your lap, with your upper arms just a little bit away from the sides of your body.
And placing the head so it’s not tilted down too much or lifted too high. So if you tuck your chin in just slightly, straighten your head, then you can position your head well. Have your mouth lightly closed, the tip of your tongue resting at the back of the top row of teeth at the palate. And although it’s okay to meditate with your eyes closed, it’s much better to learn to meditate with your eyes just a little bit open, very slightly open, directing your gaze just a short distance down in front of you but without actively looking, rather instead having an unfocused gaze. So then one can just briefly check one’s posture by moving one’s awareness from the crown of the head down through the body just for a very short time.
So having prepared the body to meditate, then it’s really important now to prepare the mind by generating the right motivation for doing the practice. We can generate this motivation by developing that awareness right now that it is our own mind that is the source of all our experience. And with every experience there is a feeling of either pleasure or pain, happiness or suffering. So being aware of that becomes obvious that if we want less suffering in our life, more happiness, contentment, well-being, then we really have to take care of our mind. Especially if we understand that our mind goes beyond this life, it never ceases, always giving rise to experience.
It’s so vital to take care of our mind. And to do that we really need to rely on a perfect method, free of all faults, complete, perfect in every way. Such a perfect method can only come from a perfect source which we recognize as the enlightened mind of the Buddha. So the very basis of all Buddhist meditation is taking refuge in the Buddha, the Buddha’s teachings, the Dharma and in the great practitioners of those teachings, the Sangha. And to do this or one way to do this or help us do this, we think or visualise of Śākyamūni Buddha in front of us as the embodiment of the Three Jewels of refuge of Buddha, Dhamma, Sangha.
Imagining the Buddha seated on a lion throne, lotus sun and moon, all in the nature of light. So we think of the Buddha as our inspiration, that we have Buddha potential within us, we can achieve what the Buddha has achieved. And then to motivate us to do that, of course there is our own basic wish to be happy and free of suffering, but more than that we can think that our existence totally depends, is interconnected with the existence of all other sentient beings. We simply could not exist without them. All the good experiences that we have, ordinary, spiritual.
All the good qualities and skills we develop, ordinary and spiritual, we can only do so totally depending either directly or indirectly on others and their kindness. And all these kind beings are suffering, trapped in saṃsāra, controlled by delusion and karma. So we can be motivated to work with our mind, just for our own sake in this life, not for future rebirth, not just to get out of cyclic existence, but to achieve enlightenment, to be in a position to perfectly repay the kindness of all beings. So we can motivate to do this meditation as part of the process of awakening our mind to benefit others. So with that motivation, we can join in the traditional prayer if you’d like to do so.
Do it twice in Tibetan, one time in English. And then the four immeasurable thoughts. I go for refuge until I am enlightened to the Buddha, the Dharma and the Supreme Assembly. By my practice of giving and other perfections may I become a Buddha to benefit all sentient beings. May all sentient beings have happiness and the cause of happiness.
May all sentient beings be free from suffering and the causes of suffering. May all sentient beings be inseparable from the happiness that is free from suffering. May all sentient beings abide in equanimity, free from attachment for friends and hatred for enemies. So then one can think that the Buddha is very pleased with one’s motivation for doing this practice, and the Buddha shows this by now coming to the crown of our head when directly above our crown the Buddha turns facing the same direction as ourselves. And then for the rest of this session we can imagine that the Buddha remains on the crown of our head blessing our mind to be able to do the practice well.
We don’t have to actively visualise the Buddha there but have a sense that the Buddha is present. So having prepared our body and mind in this way, we can now focus on the object of meditation which is our breath. So we just observe the breath coming in and going out, not changing it in any way, just very simply, precisely observing the breath. Following each in breath completely as much as one can, and then the out breath as much as one can. Particularly, one can focus on the subtle sensation in and around the nostrils as the breath comes in and goes out.
So taking one in breath and one out breath as one complete breath, we try to observe, focus on twenty one consecutive breaths. So to help do that we can count these breaths, but if our mind gets distracted or caught up in various obstacles that occur in meditation, then we should start the count from the beginning. Just keep doing this throughout the segment. So the main obstacles that can occur is the mind becoming dull and sleepy, completely losing sight of the object of meditation or getting distracted by, for example, external sounds, different sensations in the body, particularly our own thoughts. So as soon as the so it’s really important to be mindful to detect any of these obstacles and try to let go of them immediately and then bring the mind back to the breath, start the count again and just keep doing this without any sense of expectation.
Just trying to remain in the present moment of observing the breath. So people like to stand up and relax. So we can begin by re establishing a comfortable position, reaffirming our motivation and remembering the Buddha at the crown of our head. So we can begin by reflecting that all the Buddha’s teachings are related to working with the mind, and the fundamental teaching of the Buddha, from which all other teachings are connected, is the teaching on karma, the law of cause and effect. It’s talking about how the mind works.
The universal law of how the mind works. So the basic law aspect of the law of cause and effect is that for everything that exists and that we experience, there has to be a cause. We can see this in an ordinary way, in the external world that every effect has a cause. This is why we do meditation. We’re expecting some kind of effect from it.
We work to do it because we expect an effect from it. We do all sorts of things expecting some kind of result. And we can see to some extent some results in this life. But the law of cause and effect, the karmic law of cause and effect, is at a much subtler level about the workings of the mind. That everything we do in this life may have an effect, but more importantly everything we do with our mind acts as a cause to produce a karmic imprint, a karmic potential.
And that karmic potential will ripen in future times, in future lives. So this law operates whether we’re conscious of it or not, whether we believe it or not. Everything we do with our mind has an effect. Which also means that everything that we experience, starting with our sense of self, that experience of a sense of I, of me, the experience of our body and the experience of our body in this world, the experience of ourselves interacting in this world, the experience of interacting with people and things, how we interact with them, all of these things have a cause. And since all those although we can say there’s an experience with an object, a physical object, but the experience of the physical object comes from our mind, then the real cause of all our experiences is not external phenomena, but our mind.
External things are just conditions for our happiness and suffering. The real cause in every case is our own mind. Our thoughts good and bad create results. Our thoughts, good and bad, lead to speech, which leads to results. Our thoughts, good and bad, lead to physical actions that lead to results.
Every action of our body, speech and mind creates karmic imprints, karmic potentials, good and bad, that always bring a result. Which means whatever we experience, good or bad, we created the cause, either in this life or in a past life. If a particular experience is not occurring to us, it means we haven’t created the cause. If a particular experience is occurring for us, it means our mind at some point created the cause for it. It may appear from the ordinary point of view that things happen just by chance, by accident, by good or bad luck.
But the reality is our mind created the cause for it. Our mind is experiencing something. It’s our mind that created the cause for that experience. If you think of an example of a flower growing in some soil, then the flower only grows where the seed of the flower has been planted. There can be conditions for that, many conditions for that flower to grow in many places, but it only grows where there is the seed.
In our life, there are so many conditions for happiness and suffering. But if the seed for seed for happiness or suffering isn’t in our mind, we don’t experience it. So then another fundamental aspect of the law of cause and effect to consider is that karma is definite, which means the nature of the cause determines the nature of the result. And that is something that is definite, it never changes. As the Buddha said, a bitter seed always produces a bitter result, a bitter fruit.
A sweet seed always produces a sweet fruit. It’s definite, it never changes. So the disturbing thoughts, the negative thoughts in our mind of ignorance, afflicted desire, attachment, craving, anger, hatred, pride and jealousy and so on. These are naturally negative states of mind. One can observe when they arise they are painful.
They’re just naturally painful. They have the function of disturbing the true nature of the mind. So it is definite that these disturbing thoughts always generate negative karmic imprints that definitely always ripen the suffering. We follow our disturbing thoughts in this life and they may appear to bring some good result in this life, But the reality is they’re generating negative imprints, negative potentials that definitely only ripen as suffering in the future. And of course the positive thoughts of our mind of love, compassion, altruism, generosity and so on, which are reflections of the true nature of our mind.
These positive states of mind always generate positive imprints that definitely and always ripen as the experience of happiness and conditions for happiness. This never changes. We may think we’re doing good things motivated by good motivations, but in fact if the motivation is generated by disturbing thoughts, then negative imprints are definitely created that definitely result in suffering. So one can think that what is considered good and bad varies from person to person, from culture to culture, from one historical period to another. But in the context of the Buddhist teachings, there is something that a basis, a universal basis, an unchanging universal basis for what is good, considered good or bad, positive or negative, virtuous and non virtuous.
And that is how it affects the mind. There are states of mind when they arise just naturally, instantly harm the mind, disturb the mind. All minds are affected this way. The only effect of anger is it disturbs the mind. This is what it did a thousand years ago in every culture, in every mind, everywhere, as it does now, will in the future.
It doesn’t depend on religious belief, it’s what everyone experiences. And those states of mind which are natural reflections of the true nature of the mind are positive, are beneficial, are what we’re always seeking to experience. Another fundamental aspect of the law of cause and effect is that the karmic imprints that are generated from positive and negative actions, when they ripen, the result is far, far greater than the cause. One moment of anger can bring a karmic result of lifetimes of suffering. One moment of kindness can bring a lifetime of happiness.
Just as our actions in this life can have consequences that last for the rest of our life, but in a similar but even greater way, the karmic imprints we create in just in a moment, when those karmic imprints ripen, the result is enormous. So then consider that another of the fundamental aspects of the law of cause and effect that the Buddha emphasised is that once a karmic imprint is generated, whether it’s positive or negative, it will remain in the mind until it brings its result. The result may come in this life, in the next life, in ten lives’ time, a million lives’ time, but the result will definitely come sooner or later. These karmic imprints just somehow don’t fade away and disappear. They definitely bring their result.
One cannot escape the results, the karmic effects of our actions. The Buddha did teach that there are two exceptions to that, that unfortunately when we generate really negative states of mind this destroys our positive imprints that could have brought so much happiness. But we’re also taught that it is possible to purify our mind of the negative imprints. That there are practices we can do to purify our mind. This is why the Buddha taught to avoid even the smallest negative action, engage in every kind of virtue and purify the mind.
This is the Buddha’s teaching. So we can bring the meditation to a conclusion by making a strong determination to be more and more mindful in our daily life of these four laws of cause and effect. That karma is definite, that there has to be a cause, that when the result comes it’s far greater than the initial cause, and the karmic effects of our actions are never lost. By being mindful of these, this will help us to avoid negative actions, motivate us to avoid them, motivate us to engage in virtuous actions and purify our mind. So then recall the Buddha on one’s crown, thinking the Buddha is very pleased with one’s practice, and the Buddha shows this by now dissolving into blissful golden light that pours down into us, blessing our mind to be able to develop a strong faith and understanding of the law of cause and effect.
So this meditation itself has created some good karmic imprint, so we can dedicate that karmic imprint, that positive potential, that it becomes a cause for our liberation and enlightenment. So if you’d like to join in on page three. Through 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 bodhicitta mind not yet born arise and grow. May that born have no decline, but increase forevermore.
May the precious bodhicitta, not yet born arise and grow. May that born have no decline, but increase forevermore. Thank you very much. Clive? So we’ll just go through this.
So we can use our little Buddha House prayer book firstly. Maybe just before we start, are there any questions on our a question I can answer now about the meditation we did before? I mean, meditation is something which was on the four what do I call them, anyway, the four major the four aspects of karma. These are the four major aspects. So this is a very good meditation to do in itself.
It’s very simple. I mean, think a lot of people think meditation should be something that kind of is very happy and joyful and blah blah blah and you bliss out. But really analytical meditation, which is what is emphasised in our tradition, is about habituating the mind with what is true and virtuous and so on, to oppose the wrong views we have or and so on. So my teacher, Lama Zopa Rinpoche, who’s of course depicted here and up there, same picture, says that just this meditation on those four points itself is very helpful to be in order to be mindful in one’s daily life, because if one could be mindful, especially of course if one develops some belief in these things, of course it’s very impossible to prove these things because karma is such a profound subject of we can’t see the future results of our actions so we have to have faith that what the Buddha is saying is true. But of course I think there are reasons to, we can, some reasons why we can believe, have some reason to believe in the truth of these things.
Because either there’s a creator God who’s controlling everything or really it just comes down to chance, good old chaos theory. Yeah. Or there is causes for things, you know, our mind is experiencing things, so our mind is creating, is the main causer of those things. Anyway, Rinpoche says that if one, you know, could remember these things, be mindful of these four things in one’s daily life, that, you know, karma is definite. You know, if I’m doing something negative, it’s definitely going to have a negative result.
If I’m creating a cause for something, it’s definitely going to have a result. And that result is going to be far bigger than the energy that goes into creating it and once it’s created it’s never lost unless I well unfortunately the good stuff gets wiped out by anger, but I can purify things but purification is, although it’s very possible, it’s difficult to do. I mean it’s, you know, takes a lot of time and effort, know, so we shouldn’t think we just easily purify our mind. So if we could remember those things really, you know, with belief, strong belief in our daily life, be mindful of them, this would help us to hold back from engaging in negative actions because we could remember this is negative, it’s definitely going to have a result which is going to be really bad and it’s going to be a huge result in the future. Yeah.
So it will really help us to stop, you know, and but also it would encourage us to do good stuff. So just reflecting on that again and again, meditating on that, becoming familiar with that because that’s how we become mindful and by being mindful that’s how we can avoid things or do avoid negative things and do more and more positive things. Anyway. So also that’s why we need to meditate on the ten non virtues just to remind ourselves what they are because if we don’t remember them then we’re not going to avoid them. But also it’s really helpful to remember the four factors that create, you know, that determine how powerful the imprint is and how we can then modify if possible some or all of those four factors.
So that’s what we’ll reflect on now. So to make that as effective as possible, then it’s good to firstly sit comfortably in the correct posture as much as possible. And then calm the mind by doing the nine round breathing exercise just for a short time. So then on the basis of that calm, neutral mind, we can generate a virtuous mind of refuge in the triple gem, thinking that my mind is the source of all my experience, particularly of happiness and suffering. So if I want less suffering and more happiness, not only this and future lives, future existence, I have to work with my mind And I need a perfect method to do so.
And that can only come from a perfect source. And that perfect source is the enlightened mind. So that’s why I take refuge in the Buddha. The perfect teachings coming from that perfect mind, the Dharma, and the truly great practitioners of that, of those teachings, the realized practitioners of those teachings, which is the Ārya Sangha. So we think of the Buddha in front of us, seated on the lion throne, lotus sun and moon as the embodiment of the Three Jewels of refuge.
And then we motivate ourselves to achieve what the Buddha achieved by thinking of all the kind sentient beings around us, starting with our mother on our left, father on our right. Trying to bring to mind how my existence really arises depending on them, especially their kindness. And unfortunately all these kind beings are trapped in saṃsāra. Most are experiencing extreme sufferings of the lower realms right now. Even those in the god realms are not going to experience that forever.
They will also eventually fall back into the lower realms, cycling uncontrollably over and over again in all the different realms and constantly creating the causes to remain in saṃsāra. So thinking like this, we can generate the wish to achieve enlightenment, not only for our own sake, but especially to help all these suffering beings to repay their kindness. So to do that I have to achieve enlightenment, that depends on following the path, that depends on understanding the path. And the very basis of the whole path to enlightenment is understanding and practising the law of cause and effect. So for the sake of all mother sentient beings, I will meditate on this topic.
I go for refuge until I’m enlightened To the Buddha, the Dharma and the Supreme Assembly By my practice of giving and other perfections may I become a Buddha to benefit all sentient beings. So thinking the Buddha is very pleased with your motivation, imagine that firstly the lion throne on which the Buddha is seated dissolves into light, absorbing up into the lotus sun and moon. And then the Buddha seated on these comes to the crown of one’s head. And when directly above one’s crown the Buddha turns facing the same direction as oneself. And then for the rest of the session remains there blessing one’s mind.
So particularly when, if one’s mind becomes dull or sleepy or distracted, remember the Buddha on the crown of your head and imagine the Buddha sending this powerful blissful white light from his body into you, eliminating whatever obstacle is occurring. And then you bring your mind back to the meditation. So make a strong determination to be really focused on the meditation. Be mindful of detecting the different obstacles of the mind becoming dull and sleepy on the one hand or distracted on the other. And really, as soon as you notice those things, try to let go of them.
Or as I said, think of the Buddha sending white light, eliminating the obstacle. So we begin by just reflecting on, firstly, the non virtue of killing and the four factors that are involved in doing so, So that there is, firstly the basis, which is a living being other than oneself. And then there’s the intention, the conscious intention to kill. And then there has to be, as part of that intention, one of the delusions motivating that intention to kill. So one could think of examples how one could kill something out of anger, a human being or an animal or whatever out of anger.
Or one could kill out of attachment or out of ignorance, thinking there’s absolutely nothing wrong with it. Or that it’s even good to kill in some cases. So just think of various ways that one may have done this or how it could happen, that this is how I could end up creating this karma in this life out of anger, my uncontrolled anger and things even like annoyance, which is another kind of lesser delusion coming from anger, just being annoyed by something, for example with an insect, and then one kills. One can do it out of attachment or ignorance. And then one can kill by oneself directly or encourage another person to do so.
But also reflect how it can be done just by one can accumulate the karma by rejoicing when others kill. Well actually, sorry, you can’t actually create the karma of killing by rejoicing, but by rejoicing that others are killing, still one is creating some negative karma. And then there’s the completion of the act, when the person dies or the being, the sentient being dies before oneself. So then for the rest of this segment, which is until eleven o’clock, so we have another fourteen minutes, Just go through the other non virtues, especially reflecting if one has engaged in any of these negative actions in this life and, you know, what was one’s motivation and what delusion motivated it. But also thinking of various examples of how one could engage in these different negative actions motivated by either anger or attachment or ignorance.
And also the different ways one could engage in those actions. Accumulating different sort of intensities, levels of karmic Also as you reflect on these, remember that even if some of these factors are missing, then one isn’t creating the complete throwing karma, but still one is accumulating negative karma. So I take a short three minute break. So we can start again. So then, this time we should go through the results of the ten non virtues.
So remember there were the four, although they’re listed as three results: the ripen result, the results congruent with the cause this is on page twenty nine and then the environmental result. So the result congruent with the cause has two aspects, the experience similar to the cause and then the action similar to the cause, which is the habit. So again, go through these, especially trying to recognise if one has experienced in this life the experiences congruent with the cause. Or the environmental results. And remember one could experience these things for a whole lifetime or even just for a part of a lifetime, depending on how strong the imprint is.
And with the ripened result of each of the ten non virtues there’s the rebirth in one of the lower realms. So if one has, for example, engaged in stealing in a very heavy way, then one could be reborn in the actual hell realms. If it’s been not so strong, one could be born as a hungry ghost, not just fairly weakly. If the stealing hasn’t been so negative, then one could be reborn as an animal. So the same for all of the non virtues.
But definitely all of the non virtues, if one does not purify the imprints from engaging in those non virtues with all of the four factors that we looked at just now, then one gets reborn in the lower realms. But then as a human being, being reborn in the human realms again due to good karma, unfortunately, then the other, because the conditions are existing in the human realm, one experiences the other results. And particularly reflect how for each of these non virtues one of the results is the habit to do the action again and again, get all the other results as well. And this is how saṃsāra just keeps going on and on. I’m going to then briefly go over the ten non virtues again, the results of the ten non virtues, but then thinking from the point of view of engaging in the ten virtuous actions what the karmic results would be, which would be the very opposite of the results of the ten non virtues.
So then briefly relate the ten non virtues and all their results to those four fundamental aspects of karma that if I engage in any of these ten non virtues, then it’s definite. It’s definite that these results will come. I engage in the ten non virtue or any of the ten non virtues, the karmic potential is generated. So that karmic potential is never lost. So definitely these results will come.
So if I don’t want any of these suffering results, now or in the future, I have to stop creating the causes. So then bring the meditation to a conclusion by making a really strong determination to be more and more mindful in one’s daily life of the law of cause and effect, to be mindful of avoiding as much as possible the ten non virtues, To be mindful, to practice as much as possible their opposites. So then recall the Buddha on one’s crown, imagining the Buddha very pleased with your practice, and because of that the Buddha dissolves into blissful golden light, And that light pours down into you, blessing your mind to be able to develop the realization of the truth of all aspects of the law of cause and effect, a realisation that helps one to completely avoid all negative actions and to engage in virtuous ones. So then we dedicate the merit. Page three.
Through 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 bodhicitta mind not yet born arise and grow, may that born have no decline, but increase forevermore. May the precious bodhicitta not yet born arise and grow, may that born have no decline, but increase forevermore.