Welcome to the SC Dharma Group Teachings PageColumbia TeachingsGeshe Dakpa Topgyal: Further Teachings on KarmaDateline: Columbia: June 16, 2001 Karma, Part 2: Karma can be complete or incomplete. For karma to be complete, all four binding factors must be present. If all four are present at the execution of an act, karma is complete. If any one is missing at the execution of an act, karma is incomplete. Of the four binding factors, the fourth, completing the act with pleasure, is crucial. "Complete" karma means the karma carries its full force and brings maximum consequences. "Incomplete" karma means one of the four factors is missing and consequently the karma is weak. It does not produce the maximum consequences, as it should. There are 10 negative actions that produce negative karma. Some are gross actions, easily understood; some are subtle and beyond the understanding of the ordinary mind. Of the 10 negative actions, three come from the body: killing, stealing, and sexual misconduct. Four come from speech: divisive speech, harsh words, lying, and idle gossip. Three come from the mind: being covetous, ill will, and wrong view. All negative actions fall under one of these 10 categories; they are intentional physical, verbal, or mental actions. 1. Killing. The act of killing is always negative, but whether full negative karma is experienced depends on the motivation. If anger is the motivation, the full force of karma would result. If killing is done with a positive intention – by killing one you could protect 10 – it’s complicated. But in general, killing a human being is considered wrong. Killing a highly realized being -- an arhat or your own master or teacher -- or killing one’s own parent -- your mother or father -- is considered grave. And purification is very difficult. 2. Stealing. Taking something that is not yours is wrong. It is worse to steal a religious object dedicated to a specific church or temple. It is worse to steal an object people see as special or an object belonging to a larger community. 3. Sexual misconduct. xxxThis refers to adultery, sexual abuse, and harm to children. 4. Lying. This is telling someone something that is not true. Lying is intentionally telling the opposite of what’s true. By taking the opposite side, you change your own perception. It is possible to say something that is not true without meaning to tell an untruth; that is not lying. Lying about your own spiritual attainment so you can take advantage of another is a specific form of lying that is considered very serious. If a fully ordained monk or nun did this, he or she would be automatically disqualified. This form of lying has serious potential to ruin another person’s life. Other forms of lying are also negative, but do not have as much potential to harm others. 5. Divisive speech. This is speech that causes divisions between or among people or communities. Causing divisions among sangha members or within a congregation is considered very serious. Causing divisions among spiritual friends with the same goals or the same teacher is considered very serious. (Sangha means members of a spiritual community collectively working to reach a higher form of spiritual realization or attainment.) 6. Harsh words. These are words said with the intention of insulting someone or hurting someone’s feelings. When you inflict your bad mood on others, you hurt them, too. 7. Idle gossip. Having a conversation about work, your experiences, your education is not idle gossip. Idle gossip is any form of talk in which you are motivated by anger, resentment, or dislike. You make false statements to cover up your own flaws. Or you dislike a person and make negative statements about this person; you engage in backbiting. 8. Being covetous. You want to separate someone from an object or person. When you covet something or someone, you experience attachment or jealousy. The Bible mentions coveting another person’s ass; today it would be a Mercedes. 9. Ill will. Expressing ill will is very, very bad. Ill will comes from dissatisfaction or dislike. A feeling of discomfort intensifies until you burst into fire; that is called anger. You hold onto your anger, unable or unwilling to diminish it. Harboring the anger breeds resentment. Holding the resentment longer breeds ill will. Ill will’s development is sequential: Dislike or dissatisfaction is experienced until it bursts into anger; anger is held until it becomes hatred or resentment; hatred or resentment harbors ill will. Anger only comes when we feed emotional discomfort. The more you think about a particular person or event, the more you exaggerate; the more you think, the more you distort. You consciously try to make the event larger, uglier, nastier until it becomes serious to you. It affects your mind; it affects your environment; it affects others who come in contact with your negative atmosphere. When ill will is held, sooner or later, you will cause harm or injury. It is important to understand where ill will comes from – from hatred and resentment, hatred and resentment from anger – because anger comes from our own emotional discomfort. Therefore, the primary cause of anger is within us. It’s nothing more than our own emotional discomfort or feelings. 10. Wrong view. If you believe in God or in a creator and its creations, you may believe any other form of religion is bad. Underneath this is insecurity. This insecurity makes others’ faiths annoying; you might be uncomfortable, for example, attending someone else’s church. In Buddhism, that insecurity is not there. That’s because under a belief in Buddhism must reside investigation and knowledge. Buddhists are asked to listen, then check up on what’s said, to examine oneself and others. In Buddhism, wrong view includes denying the basic precepts, for example, denying cause and effect or denying emptiness. Four negative results from negative karma All negative karma results from the 10 negative actions. Negative karma brings four types of results. 1. Fully ripened karma. Fully ripened karma appears in our mental continuum. It causes a physical, emotional, or psychological result. The result of fully ripened karma appears in the body, emotions, or psyche from the moment of birth as a physical, emotional, or psychological problem. You’re born with that problem, so there’s almost no help from the material world to cure it. 2. Result corresponding to previous actions. If you completed lots of killings in your past life, in this life you might experience a strong tendency to kill. Even swatting a mosquito would give you pleasure. Perhaps you know two children in one family, and one takes great pleasure in killing. You see a huge difference between the two children. If you have no concept of karma, you might ask, "Why this one child; why not both since they have the same parents?" In Buddhism, the answer would be, "That child is different because that child had a very different lifestyle in the past and was habituated to killing." 3. Result corresponding to initial experience. If in your previous life you did something to another sentient being and your action caused intense emotional or physical pain, the resulting karma will cause you to similarly. Your undesirable experiences will match what you caused. Karma is very deep, very vast, very complicated. In your second year of the Lam Rim, you will go deeper. Be thirsty and look for an ocean. Don’t try to jump into a lake and forget the ocean. 4. Environmental result. Perhaps you live in a country where generation after generation has experienced war and anger and resentment. Maybe there are constant natural disasters. Maybe the place itself where you’re born is destructive, unhealthy. Every negative action creates a negative result and puts negative energy into the community. Every action has a consequence. The 10 positive actions Simply not indulging in the 10 negative actions does not mean you are cultivating the 10 positive actions (not killing, not stealing, etc.) Not killing does not mean you are cultivating life. You need another form of conscious awareness, more than simply avoiding the negative. You need to engage in a way of living that is life-sustaining. Consider wildlife protection; that’s an easy way to understand this. Say you see a frog with an injured leg. You make a conscious effort to protect the frog; maybe you move it to a safe place. You don’t kill it. But you also don’t just drive by, the music playing loudly. This is all about deciding how you are going to live, ethically or unethically? With some sort of spiritual awareness? Some sort of mindfulness? Are you going to make an effort? You must search in every moment for ways to not only avoid negative actions, but engage in positive actions. Each positive action brings desirable results or consequences in our next life, physically, emotional, psychologically. Our inner tendency then will lead us to live in a wholesome way. Four positive results from the 10 positive actions xxxxxx aren’t listed Purification Whether you live 10 years or 50 or 60, you will definitely engage in negative actions, consciously or unconsciously, deliberately or accidentally, knowingly or unknowingly. If you take negative action without applying a counterforce right away, the karma may be weak and incomplete, but it will grow stronger as time passes. Thus, as soon as you have committed a negative action, you must sincerely acknowledge that you did wrong. And you must engage in a practice that eliminates or purifies the negative action. There are two purification practices, Vajrasattva and the 35 confession Buddhas. In Vajrasattva practice, you engage in meditation, visualization, and recitation of mantras. 1. Meditation. First, you empty your mind of thoughts. You become calm and at rest, staying in an unbiased state without worldly, mundane concerns. You are completely awake, alert, and skillful. You are able to know without applying concepts, without adding or subtracting, without over-estimating value or under-estimating value. You know things as they really are. 2. Visualization. You are empty, but awake and alert. No thoughts, no images, no memories. While in that state you evoke the image of Vajrasattva. You bring into focus your image of Vajrasattva without thinking; this has nothing to do with concepts. Somehow, Vajrasattva becomes real to your meditating mind. Because of this, you have a deep emotional feeling, a sense contact or communication with Vajrasattva is about to happen or is happening. 3. Mantra. You engage in the 100-seed-syllable mantra. With the help of meditation, visualization, and recitation, you create an immaterial energy which directly hits where the negative seeds of karma are imprinted in the body or mindstream. The moment the energy hits, the imprint is destroyed. When the imprint is destroyed, the potential of the negative seed giving rise to negative consequences is destroyed. It’s like throwing a seed into a fire; when the seed is burned, it loses its potential to germinate. You may ask, "How do you prove this, crazy monk?" Try it. If you are using this to purify from a specific deed, before you sit in meditation, think about the deed and how you regret it. Bring before yourself those negative actions and think how destructive your actions were, how they caused harm to yourself and others. Think about how you’ve harmed not only this life, but your future lives. Think about this until it annoys you, until it gives you goosebumps. Hold that uncomfortable feeling until uneasiness develops. Then engage in meditation. During meditation, there’s no need to think back. When you had the feeling of mental discomfort, you should have evoked a physical response and a feeling of regret, not guilt. You should focus on this sincere regret; that means focusing on the consequences of the action, not yourself. Guilt focuses on self, how bad you are; that could cause depression. A sincere feeling of regret helps you change your way of being; this I can guarantee. It is important that you understand the differences between regret and guilt, where regret and guilt come from, the natures of regret and guilt, what feelings each leaves you with, where each takes you. Guilt takes you to the past and won’t change you. Regret or remorse is future-oriented and helps you change your way of living. Source: South Carolina Dharma Group Contact: Claudia Smith Brinson Phone: 803-799-0991 E-mail: csbrin@infi.net |