Feb
3, 1991
To talk about responsibility for things. For example the war in the
middle east and one's responsibility. This talk is interesting and fundamental
to Buddhism, to speak of when something happens in the world in regards to one's
country, community or one's self. To what extend are we responsible for what is
happening. From a Buddhist ideal it would come to karma. I have covered all the
basic teachings quite a few times but it is refreshing to come back to it for
the insight it provides.
In the law of cause and effect there is the basic
teachings and I would like you to think in a more dynamic manner. For example
when the law of cause and effect are presented in the format of saying life is
precious but also impermanent. Because it is impermanent, what do we have to put
our emphasis to? We have to put our emphasis toward what sort of person we are.
What sort of karma we collect. What sort of activities are we involved with? Within
that one should be conscious to have very positive karma and try to not allow
negative karma to be expressed.
In regards to karma itself, it has four principles.
Karma is definite, meaning that if karma is created if one does a particular activity,
the effects of that activity and what it will bring about will definitely come
about at some point whether in this lifetime or beyond. Because it is an activity
the mind was properly engaged in therefore karma is definite. That activity if
done, will not be lost.
The second aspect of karma is that it increases. If
you allow yourself to develop a certain style of karmic expression, that karma
will increase in the sense that it will infiltrate into other activities and affect
them. This applies to both positive and negative karma although negative karmic
expression tends to be easier for us. For example if one allows oneself to do
the negative action of stealing because of desire or anger or ignorance because
you are insensitive, in that way stealing will start to go into other activities.
So it increases as you become more conscious of opportunities of when you could
steal. You get caught up in the karma of that negative activity. Therefore it
is important to try to stop or limit negative karmic expression and to try to
put as much energy as you can into positive karma. This will also have its effect
of trying to broaden our mind into positive activities.
The third principle
is that if you do not create the karma you will never experience it's results.
Very often people become paranoid if they are involved with others. For example
if you are with someone who do very bad things but you have no particular input
into it. Let's say Paul kills someone. And I am with Paul. I have some karma there.
But if I do not do the action and if I had no involvement in that, then there
is no karma on me. Also, for example, in the giving and taking meditation with
someone who is ill, for example you find someone who has cancer. There are Buddhist
meditations in which you visualize taking away their karma and giving love and
compassion. Sometimes people think I will get cancer if I do this! Therefore I
should not do this! In the principles of karma, unless you have the karma to have
cancer, you will not have the cause for it. You should know that unless you create
the karma, you will not have to worry about experiencing the results. Similarly,
if you do not practice generosity, should not expect affluence. If you do not
practice patience, then your own physical beauty will not be high and should not
expect to be peaceful. You have to collect the karma to experience the results.
The final principle is that karma is true to it's nature. If you do a positive
action you will have positive results. If you do negative activity, you will have
negative results. This applies to the fact that if you have a positive motivation
when you do something, you are collecting positive karma. If have a negative motivation
although the action may appear to be good, you are collecting negative karma.
Sometime you might do something deceptively, give a gift when you hate their guts,
knowing it something to bring harm towards them, so although the gift is an act
of generosity, because the mind is negative, there is only negative karma in all
of that. In such ways karma is true to it's nature.
Similarly if you do something
nice for someone and they misunderstand you, that is still good karma for you.
That is their karma, what they are experiencing on their side. It is not your
responsibility and you should not loose confidence.
Those four principles,
karma is definite, karma increases, if you don't do it you will not experience
it's results, and finally, it is true to it's nature are considered fundamentals
in Buddhist presentations of karma. To swing over into being more open minded
in thinking about the meaning of performing certain activities, to look into the
actual dynamics of your own mind. For example stealing. There is the subject and
object. There is the delusion of desire. There is the activity of stealing. Finally
there is I have it in my pocket, it is mine. Those four facets being there, you
have completed the perfect activity. In that way in collecting karma, you should
be conscious of having those four facets there. Subject, object, the delusion
that motivates you, the activity to accomplish it, and having accomplished that,
the knowing of the completion of having done it.
What do the four principles
mean in our mind stream? The consciousness of that person has an energy pattern
which lacks respect for other's property, desire which is out of control, and
the completion merely validates the activity. That would be the imprint on the
mind. That there is a certain head space which has acted through and been validated.
That is karma.
They say you have this lifetimes experiences which are based
on previous lifetimes karmic activity. Very few of the things that happen to you
in this lifetime are the result of this lifetime's activities. You are the experience
of what is happening in this lifetime. Not to say things are predestined, but
allowing yourself to get into certain circumstances will ripen certain karmic
effects for yourself. If you want to hang out in a bad neighborhood, you may have
a lot of different experiences than if you hung around with good people. There
is different opportunity for different type of karma to evolve. That is why morality
is stressed. It allows you to be protected from extreme negative karma. If I never
go to bad neighborhoods or to Iraq, I will not have to experience the results
of those karma. And that would be dictated by morality. I would avoid going out
late at night by myself in a bad neighborhood. That type of morality would protect
me.
Within your mind stream are the imprints of activities of previous lifetimes
which magnetize certain situations and experiences in this lifetime. It is not
specific. You can look and see what type of activities you are performing in a
general way. In doing that you can surmise the previous lifetime activities. There
is an old saying in Buddhism. If you want to know who you were in your last lifetime,
look at what you are doing in this lifetime. If you want to know what you will
become in your future lifetime, look at what you are doing in this lifetime. You
could say in an unconscious way you are an expression of your previous lifetime's
karmic activity. And as you become more conscious you can realize what you are
creating for yourself in your future lifetime. In that way it is important to
become more conscious of who and what you are and try to develop more positive
creative karmic relationships.
Karma is dependant on your activity, your conscious
involvement with the activity, that activity being completed to make a strong
imprint. Those facets linked together with delusion create karma.
Regarding
things beyond ourself, there is karma for why you are born in a particular ethnic
group. That would apply to the type of person you are, and the activities you
do, and the particular sex you are born with. That the country you are born into
has a particular karma. And the world system you are born into would also have
karmic effect. Karma will draw towards particular situations. You are born into
a particular ethnic group that experiences particular bias, Jewish, Italian, North
American, etc. The type of person you are, karmically you are drawn to certain
things. And in the intermediate state you do not have a body that slows you down
so karma quickly draws you toward a karmic group you feel affinity for.
The
American Iraq conflict is a couple levels of karma. It is world karma. Lama Tashi
says everyone wants peace but we still have war. It is karmic because people are
still not ripe enough to experience peace. They all want peace but do not go about
it in the right way. That they got involved in the war is part of the world karma
of our planet.
If you look back at yourself in your own dealings, maybe you
resort more to aggression than to negotiation. Then you have part of the karmic
cause of war. You do not need to say specifically that you are the cause of the
war, but you can say that your attitude because it is lazy in promoting peace,
has helped establish the war because you have not established a strong and peaceful
attitude, you have not promoted it, therefore you can be responsible for that.
You cannot be responsible for the war but for the fact that humanity has not upgraded
itself. In that way you can chastise yourself. You could have tried harder to
help people utilize peaceful means in resolving conflict.
In talking of karma
and what can I do about the war? And what can I do karmically that will foster
something good? I will use an example. There was a Tibetan Lama of the Gelug tradition.
He was not that spiritual but was very powerful and in high position. As he grew
older he found some sects were not very pure and he got together a military party
and stomped on some monasteries to liberate Buddhism from bad influence such as
relying on local spirits a lot to do good things. All the Lama managed to do was
create hate toward the Gelug tradition. Because he relied on aggression for his
idealistic goal, even today there is still garbage kicking around amongst the
Tibetan community and a lot of sectarianism goes on. If he had been intelligent,
he could have resolved the problem with positive qualities and drawing them into
a better head space.
If you apply that to here and now, that you are a practitioner
of Buddhism and a pacifist and things like that, and yet you feel completely useless
because of the war, that is part of the cause of why the war is there. You feel
weak and cannot do anything, and we will go to war time and time again as long
as people have that attitude. Instead if you could be charismatic, have dynamic
energy which wants to establish peaceful negotiation, you do it with the people
you live with, those you come into influence with, then actually you create a
wave of energy which is negotiation.
The main point is to come back to yourself
and how you deal with your own aggression and negative feelings. And are you working
with them skillfully or not? In that way you are working on world karma. If you
get your own act together, it does change the world around you. Think about what
I can do. What am I karmically responsible for? And what can I do which is actually
real to me?
You could become a banner waver for a peace movement but the real
point is are you a peaceful person? Are you a transformed person? You may be just
as aggressive in being a peace-nick as those fighting in the war, never dealing
with your own aggression and such!
Meditation:
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1994 Daka's Buddhist Consulting All Rights Reserved