Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 77-minute session on the Wheel of Life, Ven Thubten Gyatso provides a detailed exploration of Buddhist karma, moving from precise philosophical definitions to practical applications for daily life and dying. He begins by distinguishing karma as intention from karmic path as the sequence of actions, showing how intention varies in weight depending on motivation, knowledge, and whether it initiates or accompanies an action. He then systematically presents karmic imprints: visible karma that ripens in this life, karmic consequences experienced in the next rebirth, and indefinite karma that can be purified through the four opponent powers or weakened through anger and attachment. Throughout, he illustrates these abstract teachings with concrete examples—a monk going blind after lying to his guru, personal experiences of karma ripening in Bodh Gaya, stories of people healed through rescue practices, cases of killing in different contexts (soldiers following orders, euthanasia, abortion, accidents, and even defensive action by a Bodhisattva). He then walks through the death process stage by stage, explaining how the elements and senses progressively absorb, the critical role of the dying person’s state of mind in determining rebirth, and how even a lifetime of negative karma can be reversed by dying with virtue and compassion. Throughout, he emphasizes that motivation and mental state are the determining factors in karma, drawing parallels to how legal systems recognize degrees of responsibility. For serious practitioners and those preparing for death.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 03 W o L 2010.mp3
UUID: 07d97606-f33e-4098-8abb-2118410d0368
Teacher: Ven Thubten Gyatso aka Adrian Feldman
Collection: Wheel of LIfe (Ven Thubten Gyatso aka Adrian Feldman)
Date: 2010 (exact day not recorded)
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 77.0 minutes
Words: ~8,493
So, karma is intention. Is the intention in the mind of a Buddha karma? So, how should we give the answer more accurately? The intention of a mind that obscures things. Yeah, okay.
So, karma is the mental factor of intention in mind of a being whose mind is obscured by ignorance, self grasping ignorance. Okay. So that’s where specifically when we’re talking about karma, that’s what we’re talking about. Of course, often when we say karma we’re referring to the whole process of cause and effect, which includes the cause and the result and in between. To be very accurate, and in Buddhism, this great stress is placed upon accurately defining our terms and speaking clearly and logically because it is a logical discipline.
When we use terms they have to be very clearly understood. So it’s good by saying, Buddha has intention intention but it’s only the intention in the mind of an obscured being. So, we differentiate between karma and karmic path. So, karma as we’ve mentioned is the intentional thought behind the action. It’s the mental factor of intention.
A karmic path refers to the sequence of actions which give rise to an intention or are the result of an intention. For example, in the karma of killing you have the motivation of killing, you know, the intention to kill which is the that’s the karma. But the other branches, the object, the action and the completion of the action, those are the sequence of actions follow that intention. So that’s the karmic path. So, when we talk about the non virtues of killing, stealing, sexual misconduct, lying and so on, We’re talking about and in presenting the four branches, we’re presenting both the karma and the karmic path.
And clearly, the path of killing, you know, doing something to kill the object is derived from that intention. That’s in terms of the physical and the verbal karmas. Now, in terms of the mental non virtues, the non virtues of covetousness, maliciousness and wrong views, actual karma is when the wrong view brings the mind to this point of intending to engage in non virtue. Like covetousness grows so strong and strong and strong and strong and it generates the intention to steal. There’s no doubt left, you’re going to steal.
So, that intention, that’s the karma, we’re talking about the three mental non virtues and the karmic path is all of the thinking that went on beforehand, or that’s lovely, I really want that, I need that, you know, builds up, we don’t just instantly steal, we work up to the point. So that’s the karmic path of the mental non virtue of the three mental non virtues are built up in that way. So the karmic path precedes the generation of the intention which is the karma. Is that clear? And in terms of the physical and verbal actions, what you’ve already done that building up and you have the karma of killing, stealing gives rise to the karmic path of doing the act, physically and verbally.
So they make this distinction just so distinction just so that, again, so we can be very clear and not confused in discussing the subject of karma. Also, of course, when we’re doing the action there is an intention during the time of killing or stealing or whatever, isn’t there? I mean there’s the intention prior that initiates the action, but as intention is an ever present mental factor, there’s also intention present during the act of stealing intentional karma, and the intention in the mind during the act of whether it’s a virtuous or non virtuous action, that’s called the operational karma. So the operational karma refers not to the actual action, physical or verbal action, but it refers to the intention manifest in the mind at the time of the act. Because we are talking progression through time, we’re not talking about one instant, we’re talking about a whole sequence of moments where the mind’s always changing and the intentions change.
So, again, this is just a very clear distinguishing between this intention and that intention, which is the well, they’re both karma, but one’s the intentional karma, the other’s operational, you know, the intention present at the time of the actual action. Another presentation of karma is inert karma. So, now we’re talking about karmic seeds, right? It’s karmic imprints. So, we’re now talking about karma in a more general context.
So, karmic imprints, there are karmic imprints that definitely will ripen and there are karmic imprints which are created in a much less heavy way which are not definite to ripen, they’re called indefinite karmas or indefinite karmic imprints. Karmic imprints, which will definitely bring about a result or which will definitely ripen, are of three types. There’s visible karma, so these very powerful actions we do can bring about a result in the same life that they created. Obviously they’re not going to bring about a throwing result because that’s a future life. But the completing result can occur, as in the example of the monk who went blind when he said he didn’t see his guru when he made that lie, right?
So that was a visible karma and we can see the result of that action here. And it can happen in any strong action in relation to powerful objects of like teachers, parents, and holy objects, like statues and stupas. I once experienced a vis I think it was visibly ripening karma in Bodh Gaya. When there was Lama Yeshe had organized the first Dharma celebration where many two or three hundred of his students, including about eighty monks and nuns and lay people, a hundred and twenty lay people, we all gathered in Bodh Gaya to receive teachings and to do many practices and we sort of booked the entire government tourist hostel in Bodh Gaya. So we were all living there.
One of the monks sharing my room was Dieter. I can’t remember Dieter, the German monk. He he was really fascinated by sports. He was really into sport. And one time, most people were at the stupa in Bodh Gaya and I was going later and there was a radio on and it just happened to be a world heavyweight boxing bout was happening and I just sort of heard the result.
I think in those days it was probably Cassius Clay or Mohamed Ali, I can’t remember, still fighting. Anyway, I found out who won the World Championship Boxing Tournament. So then I went off to the stupa of the most holy place in the whole universe and doing circumambulations and I met the German monk and I thought, do I tell him or not? And I was impulsively obliged by my non virtuous virtuous mind to gossip, to idle gossip about telling the result, who won the heavyweight championship. Anyway, I committed the kind of art of gossip in the holiest place in the Buddhist world.
So, later that evening, it was dark and I was walking back from the stupa to the tourist bungalow. It was very dark and there were a lot of young Indian students who there’s a university further out the road and they’d been in town, I don’t think for any holy purpose, but do what young male students do they were riding their bicycles, two or three on a bicycle. I was just walking by the road and and they came up behind me and I think because they had one riding the other passenger. One of them just came from behind and sort of whacked me the back of the head, which wasn’t painful, but it was enough to make me look for a rock to throw at them as they went by. And then I realized this is karma of talking about the boxing under the Bodhi tree, you know, where the Buddha got enlightened.
I shouldn’t have done that. So I think that was a visible karma anyway. It could also happen in positive ways. By doing very strong positive actions, positive things can happen. Lama Zopa Rinpoche has had many people with, you know, very serious terminal cancer and so on, come to him and he’s advised them to do very strong positive actions like rescuing animals that are destined to be slaughtered and and saying prayers and mantras and carrying around stupas like placing a positive imprint upon the animals’ minds and then setting them free.
And there are several examples where Lama Zopa has collected these stories where people have been abandoned by the doctors as being incurable, etcetera, and they’ve done these practices that he’s recommended. And, you know, the miracles happen. The cancers shrivel up and disappear, and they live many years free from cancer. So I think this is a probably another example of a visible karma of how one creates the virtue of rescuing sentient beings and giving them positive karmic imprints in their minds to meet the dharma in the future by saying mantras and so on, with sincere compassion, sincere love, and that the thought should not be as for me, I want to be cured. It has to be sincere concern for the welfare of the animals.
And And then there could be two things that are happening. One is that it is a visible ripening of that actual karma or it could just be that the very virtue in the mind becomes a condition for one’s own positive karma to ripen for the cancer to fade away. So I don’t know, one of those two possibilities are operating. So there’s visible karma, anyway, that can happen in this life. The completing result of actions positive or negative, can occur in this the life that they created.
The next type of karma that definitely ripens is karma where the results experience experience in the very next life. So, for example, the five worst or heaviest actions, the five heinous karmas are the, you know, the karma of killing one’s mother or killing one’s father, killing an arahant, a practitioner who has achieved nirvana but still is in the body of that life where they achieved nirvana. Wounding a Buddha with the intent to kill, it’s not possible to kill a Buddha. Buddhas have gone beyond death. But Devadatta, his Buddha’s own cousin, once caused blood to flow from the Buddha with the intention to kill him by throwing or causing a landslide or something and vulture’s peak.
And the final heinous karma is to deliberately cause a schism in the ordained followers of Buddha at the time of Buddha and Devadatta did that. Also he killed his parents. I think he did all five. Anyway, if one commits one of those, one’s throwing result will definitely happen in the very next life when we were reborn in the hells as a result of that action. So, that’s karma where there’s, that’s definite karma where the result is experienced in the very next life.
Then there’s karma, definite karma which is lighter but will definitely be experienced at some stage in some future life. So, such karmas are where, you know, there’s strong intention to do it and you do it, you accumulate the negative karmic imprint. Then, indefinite karmas are karmas which are not strong enough to definitely be experienced. They be completely purified by applying the four opponent powers, you know, in terms of negative karma, the four opponent powers when we recognize the non virtue which generates generate sincere regret. The strong determination to not repeat the action.
We do some action to oppose that negative action like if we’re stolen, we practice generosity, something like that. Or the mantras, prostrate, many different types of action can be done to oppose the action. So, you know, we see this as negative and with strong regret we engage in the opponent powers. What’s the fourth one? Resolve not repeat the action, yeah, doing an opponent action, regret.
Is the fourth one? This one’s refuge. That’s right. If one has hurt sentient beings then one can meditate on compassion, bodhicitta or if one’s negative action has been directed towards the Three Jewels, Buddha, Dhamma, Sangha, one strongly meditates on refuge. So, if one does those four powers very strongly, one can completely purify indefinite karmas so that they are extinguished.
In terms of the karmas which will definitely ripen, they can be mitigated, they can’t be totally purified but they can be lessened. So that, for example, we may have the karma to be reborn in hell or a hungry ghost or and so if we do a strong purification practice like the Nyung Nye, the two day fasting retreat with many prostrations and recitation of Om Mani Padme Hum, praises to Avalokiteśvara, then it’s said in this, within this practice that any fatigue, any heat or cold or hunger or thirst that you experience is the ripening of, you know, definite karmas that would have definitely been reborn in the lower realms, but the ripening as suffering situations in this life as a human. Virtuous karmas can also be destroyed by anger, by attachment, by wrong views, by any afflictive mind, any strong afflictive mind can weaken or totally destroy virtuous karmas. So, it can weaken, you know, definite karmas or it can totally destroy indefinite karmas. Now just examples of indefinite karmas, are some are given to get an idea.
So there are five examples where there is no certainty that the karma will be experienced, so these are indefinite karmas. And one is actions done under orders. You know, for example, if soldiers kill not willingly but because they’re ordered to, they have no choice but to follow the orders, then they commit the karma of killing but it’s very weak compared to killing voluntarily and willingly. And so the karma is created but it’s an indefinite karma, it’s not definite to ripen, it’s weaker. Also, actions done under insistent request.
For example, a terminally ill person might repeatedly request us to end their life and we may be unwilling or resistant to it, but under repeated requests and demands and feeling sorry for them we may ring up the doctor, get the injection or whatever and bring them out at the end of their life. So it is the we engage in the action of killing so we commit the action of killing but it’s much weaker than killing out of, you know, strong motivation, intention with all the four branches complete. Another example is complete ignorance. Example is complete ignorance when we don’t know what we’re doing. Doesn’t mean ignorance of karma but, you know, I mean, are many times we might walk on an insect and kill it.
We don’t know we’re killing it. We’re unaware that by walking across the grass we’re actually killing all these insects. There’s maybe a bit of carelessness if we checked out we should have been more careful in avoiding treading on insects, but we weren’t aware we were doing it. So it’s not there is the action, it’s happened, but it’s not definite to ripen. Another example is uncontrollable compulsion, you know, due to the afflictions where just sort of spontaneously or automatically one lashes out in in an explosion of anger or hatred, maybe strikes somebody and maybe they die as a result.
There wasn’t the intention to kill, but you kill, you do the action. So it is much lighter and it’s not definite to be experienced. Or situations where we think we’re doing the right thing but we’re not, we’re actually, instead of helping we’re harming and we may even kill some animal or even a human thinking that we’re actually going to help but we were out, we had the wrong idea, what we’re doing was a mistake. So again, we’ve killed the person or the insect or the animal but it’s a light karma that’s not definite to ripen. So this gives us there are a lot of teachings given by Buddha explaining karma in more details and we can see that it is very variable and it’s all associated with the intention behind the act, you know, how crucial that intention is.
Even in our legal system, we have first degree murder, second degree murder, we have murder and manslaughter. And these factors come into account. Insanity is a valid excuse not, you know, be convicted of murder. Buddhism says the same. If you are insane you cannot commit any of the ten non virtuous actions.
You’re not responsible. I mean you create negative karma but it’s not the heavy, full, four branches complete negative karma. There is some responsibility, of course, but it’s a valid excuse, not excuse, but it is a lesser karma. It is manslaughter as opposed to murder. And in our legal system we give different punishments, don’t we?
Lighter punishment for manslaughter. So it’s taught by Buddha in a similar way. Yeah, no, I think that, I mean it’s the more we understand about karma actually the more dangerous it becomes. Because if we’ve heard the teaching of karma and we reject, say, alright, I won’t kill humans but I’m gonna go fishing, you know, fish are stupid and I can kill fish. Then we’re in big trouble because we actually consciously reject the teachings on karma.
So the more understanding we have, understanding we have, the greater the heaviness if we commit negative karma. For children they’re in the category of having no understanding, they’re not really conscious of the full effect of their actions, they’re not conscious of the insects as being real feeling, hurting sentient beings, so their action is much, much less less heavy. Still killing, they intend to kill, but much, much less probably common that won’t definitely be experienced. Or probably. It probably fits to that category of not having full awareness of the results of one’s actions.
And also our legal system recognizes that, you know, that children are not responsible for their, for murder, for example. So at a certain age we count it off. One hates mosquitoes and one has strong hatred and slaps them and takes great joy that they squash the mosquito, whether they know about karma or not, that is the full blown murder. It does not require knowledge or lack of knowledge of karma. If one is aware of karma and doesn’t care and squashes the mosquito with anger, it’s much heavier, much heavier because one is denying cause and effect.
So ignorance of karma is not an excuse. But denying karma just makes it heavier. If you kill it and then you eat it with delight, that compounds the karma because you’re really rejoicing in the death of that fish and so it’s heavier. Like you killed it with a purpose to eat it because you were attached to the taste of fish. And so going ahead and eating it just completes the whole action.
I mean, the completion of the killing is the death of the fish, but it’s even it’s compounded by enjoying eating if you generated regret or even best if you can generate regret while the fish is still alive and throw it back, then of course you don’t create the karma of killing. If you are invited out for Sunday lunch and you go to your friends and they welcome you and having roast chicken and they say we killed the chicken just for you. Now you didn’t know that. So, if you learn that and if you refuse to eat the chicken then no problem. But if you go ahead and eat the chicken, your mind will then collect the karma of killing that chicken.
So we don’t even have to know about the act, we can rejoice. And if we hear that our soldiers are killing so called enemies and if we rejoice in the death of people like Saddam Hussein, we accumulate the karma of killing. So be careful. Be very careful about this whole situation. Rejoicing is scary.
And a positive side, if you hear about people doing wonderful work to help the sick, the hungry, the homeless and if you sincerely rejoice in their virtue in the happiness of the people who helped, you collect the same karma, you collect that virtuous karma of helping all those sick people even though you’re sitting at home watching the TV. So it shows how powerful is the state of mind. So rejoicing is the greatest assistance, an enemy in accumulating non virtue because just by delighting in the negative actions of others we create this imprint. So it’s like we’re trained like look at Hollywood, look how Hollywood is conditioned our minds to rejoice in the killing of the bad guys and it seems to be the solution is to kill your enemy and happiness will come. You know, the Marshal in the Westerns comes along and kills the outlaws, peace will reign and this has been really it’s become a part of our whole psychology that happiness depends on eliminating your enemies.
And look at the world. Look at these mass killings. School children taking guns to school and knives and killing the other kids who they don’t like. Where’s it coming from? I think it’s coming from Hollywood and television.
Really do. I mean in the 60s censorship was the arch enemy but nowadays I think there is an argument to censor not just the violence but the concept behind the violence that to kill your enemy will bring about is a way to resolve problems, whether they’re human or aliens, whatever kill them as much as you can. So think about the psychology here, it’s very important, particularly with our children. See, our children are going be exposed to this mass psychology that is being thrust upon us through the various media and because a lot of I think something needs to be said and done, but what? I’m not sure.
Is the karma. Of course, it’s vital. It’s essential. It’s the it’s the determining factor. You can kill with compassion and create virtue.
As, you know, the we all heard the story of the Buddha in previous life when he was a Bodhisattva on the path, how he he saw that one man was going to kill five hundred merchants and steal their goods and in order to out of compassion and willingness to accept any consequences of the act, he killed the potential murderer to protect him from creating that negative karma and to protect the five hundred merchants and that was out of pure compassion and that created virtue. So no doubt the motivation is all important. A half dead insect What are you suggesting, Well look, you know, you take a kangaroo, something a bit more intelligent than an ant, it’s wounded, it’s going to die. Now you’ve got two choices, one is to put it somewhere cool, give it some water, say mantras, meditate on love and compassion and help its mind gain some sort of imprint, positive imprint as it’s dying. The other is to get a great stick of wood and come at it and whack it over the head which is what people do out of so called compassion.
But the kangaroo is terrified, it sees this human with a great stick and you beat it and you don’t kill it the first time, it tries to struggle and go away, beat it again and it’s out of its misery. So the way of dying is so different. And it will, one way you can almost guarantee a peaceful happy rebirth. The other way you can always guarantee it gives a negative rebirth. Yeah.
Well, I mean, so the question is about, oh this animal’s purifying its negative karma, I should let it purify. Well, only Yogis with clairvoyance can tell what’s the best thing to do in terms of ripening of karma. If we don’t have clairvoyance, we’re not just talking about animals, so we’re onto the topic of euthanasia even before we’re ready. If we don’t have that clairvoyance, we should try to allow the dying animal or dying person to give them the conditions to have as peaceful and as virtuous a mind as possible, minimize their pain but retain mental clarity as much as possible and support them in experiencing the ripening of the karma which if we don’t understand what’s going on and we kill them even if they request, that karma is still incomplete, we could be precipitating a rebirth in the lower realms to experience the rest of that karma. So it’s unskillful to engage in euthanasia if we don’t have the to know that it’s suitable.
If it is suitable, then we can give the patient or the person an overdose of morphine or whatever, Only if we’ve that clairvoyance. You see, it’s also it’s ignorance thinking it’s better to die because death is the end of all suffering. Not true. Death can be the beginning of unimaginably worse suffering. So every moment of life, even if one has great pain, is an opportunity to train the mind in virtue.
Of course, it’s up to the individual and you can’t begin training your mind in virtue when you’re dying. We have to now prepare for our death because many of us are going to die in great pain. It’s going to happen. So now we should be preparing for death in learning how to transform difficult experiences, everyday experiences, the biting of a mosquito or whatever, transform that situation so that you have a virtuous mind instead of a non virtuous mind. And then the more and more familiar you become, the more capable you will be of having a very skillful death.
Okay. So that brings us to death. Well before death insanity. I remember at Kopan in the early days, there was an American nun who had just finished several months retreat and those were the days before the internet and so we used get this stuff called surface mail which had a whole bunch of letters that had accumulated while she was in retreat and so we’re all having lunch and she’s going through her accumulation of mail and so accumulation of mail and sort of she’s very quiet in one corner and then she sort of threw all the letters around and bursts out laughing and it’s clear. This is all the news from home, death, divorce and insanity.
That was the family news. So luckily she knew enough Lam Rim to be amused by it. In in reference to karma and insanity, even aryas. An ārya is a being who has realized emptiness and with the realization of emptiness they destroy all the accumulated karma. Definitely the karmas which are not certain to ripen are extinguished and the karmas which are definite to ripen are not extinguished but they are rendered incapable of ripening. So an ārya can experience insanity but not as a result of karma but because the ārya’s body, this meditator who’s realized emptiness, their body is a karmic ripening from a previous life, there can be a physiological cause for insanity to arise and so they can experience insanity from that result but not a karmic ripening result.
See insanity, There are indeed physiological imbalances which can result in confused thinking insanity. And there are not only physiological imbalances but there are other events which can bring about can precipitate insanity such as great fear, great terror, you know, when somebody sees a ghost or some horrific experience can precipitate mental imbalance and disturbance. Strong grief, you know, the loss of a loved one or something can precipitate mental imbalance, you know, depression, not just psychosis but, you know, a neurosis or depressive or anxiety state. State. One can be can be harmed.
Buddhism certainly accepts that there are beings with whom we share this environment, there are hungry ghosts and malevolent beings who can cause harm and cause a state of mental imbalance and insanity like possession by spirits is a reality. It’s not just a metaphor for ordinary insanity, it can happen. And then finally there can be a physiological imbalance which can also be the cause of insanity. So those are precipitating conditions but the karma, the karmic ripening for insanity, that can be caused there are certain actions which create the cause for future insanity. The first of these is by giving others some sort of drug or or some concoction to make them deranged, you know, to stupefy or completely disturb their thoughts deliberately giving, you know, some psychoactive chemical to harm their thinking.
Secondly, forcing others to take alcohol or any intoxicant or poison against their their will can create the cause for oneself to be karmically experiencing insanity in future life. The third is frightening, giving great fear and fright to wild animals, for example by setting a forest on fire and causing great terror to all the creatures who are burnt alive deliberately and without any thought or concern for the or humans who are going to be burnt alive. Lighting the fire is just one example, causing great fear. Or the fear that, next example they give in the Lam Rim is like throwing humans or animals into a chasm, know, throwing over a cliff so they fall to their death. There’s a great, like intense fear is experienced by the beings that’s falling.
And in general, any action, strong action that harms another’s well-being, their peace of mind, their well-being can lead to a karmic ripening in the form of insanity in future life. So, just list these and mention thinking about them we gain some insight into karma, it helps to understand karma. Now, the next subject is the death process itself. So, just briefly, I’m sure you’ve been through it before and but just to mention some important points, I’m sure you’re aware that death occurs stages and in general these stages are associated with the progressive deterioration of our body and mind. So, first, the most gross aspect of human being is their body.
So, the physical aspect begins to weaken as during the first stage of death, the limbs become thin and weak and for the dying person it becomes very difficult to move their arms and legs. We talked about the four elements, the earth, water, fire, and air, so on. So, at this stage, the earth element which is the coarsest function of matter begins to weaken. And so, the property of solidity and the function of load bearing of our body weakens and so one can experience a sinking, a falling sensation. And often, you know, when we’re going to sleep this can happen.
Going to sleep, the same process is the same process of dying, it’s just not as complete as dying. But I’m sure many of you may have experienced when you’re just dropping off to sleep in that transition you get this sense of falling and you won’t even put out your arms to protect yourself but you’re flat in bed, you have this sense of falling but you’re not. That’s the earth element absorbing. Or there can be a sense of pressure on the chest. Strong pressure like sand being buried under sand.
A lot of people feel that and then they start to imagine there’s a spirit sitting on my chest squashing me. It’s probably not a spirit, it’s just the absorption of the absorption of the earth element, this pressure on the chest. The eye sense, which is sort of the most active and dominant of our five senses begins to weaken and so the dying person has difficulty in opening and closing the eyes and difficulty in sort of focusing upon objects. You have to they ask you to come closer. There’s an inner vision which is said to be like this inner mental vision, this shimmering blue mirage with the hot sun on the desert sand and you get this mirage of like water so that there’s an inner vision like that.
Then the feelings stop. The feelings of happiness and unhappiness are very strong mental activities, you know, the main things in life that we pursue are to increase happiness and decrease unhappiness, so the feelings begin to fade. And so for the dying person, there are the pleasure, displeasure and neutral feelings diminish, particularly in relationship to the sense of touch, but in general these feelings become weaker, subtle feelings still remain but the gross feelings stop. The water element begins to weaken, so the liquids of the body dry out, the body stops sweating, saliva is not produced and tears are not produced. A dying person may complain of a very dry mouth and sore eyes because there’s no tears being produced.
The ear sense, the next dominant sense becomes weak and they find it difficult to hear people talking to them and you have to shout in their ears to make them hear what you have to say. The inner vision is it’s like a room full of smoke. I remember I had this experience once when I was a child and I had a small dental procedure and I stood up after the procedure and fainted but just before I fainted the dentist surgery seemed to be full of smoke, this is weird, where did all the smoke come from? And then I blacked out. Fainting also is a small death, just as going to sleep is a small death.
So these visions occur. The next is the weakening of our power of discrimination. Remember we talked about, well feeling is one of the ever present mental factors, isn’t it? And discrimination is another ever present mental factor. So it crops up again.
And so at this time we lose our power of discrimination. We forget, you know, the meanings of things, forget the names of our family, who may be visiting the deathbed and to say goodbye, we even forget who they are, which might upset them or might please them, not sure. So, that begins to weaken and we lose our sense of morality, our sense of purpose in life. Now, this is the critical point because it’s whilst we still have some discrimination able to in terms of virtue to discriminate between what’s virtuous and non virtuous. We have this power.
This is the time when the karma for the future life is going to be ripened. It’s going to be nourished by our mind, by the state of mind. So, if we, whilst we still have the power to control our emotions, if we allow our mind to abide in non virtue, you know, anger at the doctors or anger at the relatives for already fighting over the will, then that anger will ripen a non virtuous karma created by anger, similar state of mind. So, we’re in big trouble. But if we can consciously maintain the mind we still have some power of discrimination.
We choose to maintain the mind in virtue, in love, compassion, you know, especially thinking, forgetting this life and just having a thought of love and compassion that wherever I go may I be reborn in a situation where I can continue my practice, where I can benefit others? So, that virtuous mind will ripen a virtuous karma. Even if we’ve been a mass murderer, we’ve done terrible things during our life. If we can die in this state of virtue, that will definitely ripen a positive karma and we’ll have a happy rebirth. A negative karma cannot ripen.
Of course, it’s difficult. If we’re habituated habituated to non virtue during life, it’s extremely difficult to consciously generate a virtuous mind as we’re dying. And again, that’s why we should start doing that now. Now we should be preparing for our death because these last moments of death are actually the most important moments of our entire life because that is what will determine our future life. The negative karmas that we’ve accumulated, if we were a mass murderer, they won’t be lost.
They’ll be carried into the future life. But we may get the chance if we do have a good rebirth, we may get the chance to purify them before they actually ripen. Okay, so the discrimination, the smell weakens and the inner vision changes to like very dark with dancing sparks like in the night outside if you poke a fire and the red sparks dance up into the sky, in the black sky. So it’s said to be a vision like that. That’s the third stage of death.
The fourth stage is the absorption or the weakening of all of the other mental factors, all our positive and negative thoughts and ideas, all of the volitions, these become weaker and weaker and fade away. So, at this stage we can no longer move, we don’t have the power to move our limbs, we’re just lying flat on the bed, the taste sense stops, the sense of touch is lost, the wind element weakens and so the breathing stops. But we’re not yet dead. Even though the breathing stopped there is still the final step is the absorption of the consciousness, the main consciousness. The inner vision changes to like a pinpoint of light at the bottom of a dark black well.
So now what’s happened is that the winds have contracted from all the sense organs, the five senses have stopped functioning because the wind energies have contracted towards the central channel. And then as the wind energies flow down from the upper part of the body, they go down the central channel to the heart chakra, then you get what’s called a white vision and as the wind energies come up from the lower part of the body towards the central channel and into the central channel you get a red vision, very subtle whiteness, redness. For most of us we’re totally unconscious when this is so subtle we can’t pick it up. We’re not aware that it’s happening. But a yogi or a meditator can be aware of this process happening.
Then all the winds enter the heart chakra, they absorb into the indestructible drop, the most subtle wind and there’s totally black vision. Then there’s a slight moment of swoon or there’s a past, an unconsciousness, just an instantaneous moment where the final vision of death occurs, the clear light vision. And so these three visions or four visions, the white vision, red vision, black vision, clear light vision are the final stages of the absorption of all the winds back into the indestructible drop. You have the most subtle wind, most subtle mind. All of the conceptual activities list of various conceptual activities cease.
And so there’s no conceptual activity at all. If you’re a meditator you can stay in that state and it’s a great state to meditate on emptiness because there’s no appearance, there’s no wrong appearance of inherent existence. Remember, inherent existence is a wrong conception So all conceptions have stopped. So it’s a good time to meditate on emptiness. And yogis can stay there for weeks meditating on the clear light and they can actually reverse the sequence.
Even after a long time of not breathing, they can reverse and not die. And maybe this is what happens in so called near death experiences that the absorption goes up to a point, but I don’t think anywhere near the clear light, maybe maybe to the white vision and then it reverses and they don’t die and like in the meantime the doctors have given up, even put them in the freezer or even in the grave, but they weren’t dead and they actually come out of it. So I think that’s what happens. Whilst the mind is in the state of clear light, physical deterioration doesn’t happen. It’s as if somehow the body goes into a state of suspended animation and it won’t deteriorate.
It will only start to putrefy when the indestructible drop separates from the body and that’s the moment of death and irreversible. And as the karma had already ripened way back during the absorption of discrimination, the intermediate state is determined. Your rebirth state is determined so the intermediate body will be similar to the be a result of that karmic ripening, so it will be similar to the future life pleasant or unpleasant one will experience various things and the Bardo existence can be very quick, it can be only a few split seconds and one’s karma can take one to the future rebirth or can take longer after a week. It’s taught that if the rebirth state hasn’t been found there’s a mini death but still the same karma is operating and one just reappears in the Bardo in the same aspect and this can happen maximum seven times, but after seven times ninety nine point nine nine nine percent of beings will have been reborn. It doesn’t take forty nine days, that’s just the maximum.
Very, very occasionally it’s taught that some beings can stick around the Bardo longer but not forever, eventually their mind will be reborn in a future process of rebirth. Know, a being is born human, they have a vision of their future parents and they’re attracted to the parents, it’s not necessarily engaging in sexual intercourse but they see them in the act and if already the karma has ripened whether they’re going have male or female body. And in general, if you’re going to be male, there is a sense of desire, desire for the future mother which attracts you to the union of the sex organs and there’s anger towards the future father which causes the death of the intermediate state being, that moment of anger and the mind, because of attraction, the indestructible drop enters the future mother’s womb and unites with the egg which has either been fertilized or is about to fertilized, it doesn’t specify exactly when, but round about the time of fertilization, and away you go. The reverse death process occurs, the indestructible drop becomes the point where the future heart chakra will be. Through the subtle elements acquired from the sperm channels begin to occur and with the coarsening of the mind coarsens, the wind coarsens and you get the elongation from the heart chakra, you have this tube going, one end will be the head, the other end will be the lower part of the body and then you get the other chakras and the branches and so the ripening of karma is associated with the coarsening of the wind and ripening of karma and the mental activity of the conceptualizations is associated with the coarsening of the wind energy and this becomes the organizer of the developing embryo.
And I think that’s a really interesting point. When I did embryology years ago, more than forty years ago, forty five years ago, nobody knew what the organizing factor was that organized this multiplying bunch of cells into a human body or a chicken’s chicken’s body or whatever, they knew that it happened and there was some organizing factor, but nowadays maybe it’s under, maybe there is some theory, I don’t know. I interesting that the channels and chakra system becomes the template and that that results from the ripening of karma and the mind that becomes the template upon which the cells of the embryo organize organize to develop a fetus. And then the fetus grows and you get the sense organs and everything. All the time the mind is still like you get the reverse vision, so from the clear light you go to the black, red, white visions and then subtle visions, but still the mind overall is asleep.
That’s about twenty five weeks of gestation that the fetus actually actually wakes up and is aware of where it’s at and so on and has clear memories of previous life. But for the rest of gestation, those memories sort of tend to fade away because there’s nothing to reinforce them and there’s the all of the experience of being in the womb and the experience of being born which is terribly frightening and painful to the baby. And then by the time the baby can talk, another twelve or eighteen months, a long time, those memories of past life have faded away. But still some children can remember past lives and even talk about it. But even if they do that, their parents say be quiet, eat your cornflakes and don’t talk rubbish.
And so they’re no longer verbalized and this life which is so vivid just takes over. It’s like we forget dreams, don’t we? Have vivid dreams and we wake up, oh I must remember that it’s gone because there’s nothing to reinforce it. So it’s like that, the past life gets forgotten. What happens to the mind of?
A stillborn A stillborn baby. Well they die, they experience death in the womb and they’re off into the Bardo, the mind goes off into the Bardo. Yes, they have created the karma to die in the womb. It’s happening all the time, isn’t it? Abortion, you know, we kill babies in the womb, we create the karma to die in the womb.
Because the karma has already ripened. For us to die? No, the person is donating the organ. I mean, we don’t whip out the organs while they’re still breathing, we have this term we call clinical death, where they’ve definitely stopped breathing and there’s no sign of neurological activity in the brain and there are certain signs of clinical death. So it’s only then that we whip out their kidney or whatever, their heart.
So the karma for that time has ripened. You can’t change it. Their future karma has ripened. So there may still be, the indestructible drop may still be within the body experiencing clear light but it’s not going to affect taking out their kidneys or affect their future life. In fact, if we consciously sign a form dedicating our organs when we die to others, then it’s incredibly good karma to do that.
And these aren’t my words, these are the words of Kalu Rinpoche, a great Kagyu Lama, and he answered these questions way back in the seventies. And this is what he said: Because the karma is already ripe and no problem. And some people say, but what about the Lamrim says you can’t touch the body or you influence the future life? Well, actually that may refer to yogis in profound meditation on the clear light. But in terms of ordinary beings, the karma has already ripened and you’re not going to affect their future life in any way by transplanting the organs.
I always thought there was some attachment attachment has stopped. It’s stopped. On stopping breathing, I think I mentioned in the notes, you know, the final stages, did I mention it? Yeah, the final stages of death can occur quickly or take up to three days in an ordinary person. Subtle thoughts cease, such as primitive fear, hunger, thirst, longing, satisfaction, the wish to suckle, to kiss, to hug, boredom and indifference.
So those are the subtle conceptions. The gross conceptions of attachment, anger, they’re stopped. They can’t function. So it’s excellent to be an organ donor. To consciously dedicate one’s organs is really good karma.
Even if it happens or not, just to do it is good karma and give blood and so Well, I mean, sure, medical science does some pretty horrific things to animals. I don’t think in our situation now if we dedicate our organs to others, I don’t think we could possibly be implicated in that experimental karma. I don’t think we could share it. It’s not that we’re rejoicing in it, look it’s just a reality that organ transplantation helps and I think it can only be virtuous. I mean in terms of the scientists doing experiments, well it’s sad, you know.
And a long time ago at Tārā Institute in Melbourne there were two young a couple came, young people, they were animal liberationists and they came to see what the Buddhists were into and we’re having a cup of tea and we’re talking about their ideas and they were really like getting worked up and angry about the scientists harming animals in the laboratory, really angry. And I said to her, Look, you shouldn’t be so angry at the scientists. I mean, they may be reborn as the rabbits in the laboratory now. And they both said in unison, Oh I hope so! And I said, but can’t you see that the rabbits that you now have so much compassion for aren’t maybe ex scientists, you know?
And that they couldn’t catch. Yeah, we talked before about the motivation for killing and I mean in laboratory in general one does try to minimize the pain and suffering that animals experience when you experiment on them. And there is the underlying thought to benefit human beings. So it’s probably one of the karmas which is lighter, not definite. Still a karma of killing, but a lighter one than killing out of, you know, hatred or strong desire and not caring about the degree of suffering that one inflicts upon the other.
So it’s, it’s lighter. What kind calm are they creating? Well, you’ve learned the basics so now you sort it out yourself. So you know the motivation is the primary determining factor in what type of karma is created. So you have to ask why do they want to go to the execution.
They may be very Christian and go there to say prayers of love and compassion. So then it’s virtuous karma to help the person being executed or they may have some, I don’t know, sadistic pleasure derived from seeing somebody die, being put to death, so that’s negative karma and they would be that’s rejoicing of the death, they would actually, if they rejoice in it and take pleasure in it, they accumulate the karma of killing. Yeah. Sport where animals are involved in killing each other, that’s right and cruelty, it’s really heavy stuff. Maybe horse racing, I don’t know.
Think Tibetans like horse racing but they don’t have it like we do. Yeah, it really makes us think how to treat animals and refer to them. Alright, I think maybe we have a short break. Is the kettle on?