How Kamma Works

This is Part 2 of a series of teachings that introduce some of the factors relating to our true well-being and happiness from the Buddhist viewpoint. This talk is on the subject of kamma.

What is the relevance of kamma to our life here and now? What is kamma, and how does it work? How is kamma related to my well-being and happiness? These are some of the questions that are discussed in depth.

Kamma is not just about our external world; it is just as significant about our internal world. Even the way we think, our perceptions and dispositions are direct reflections of how we thought and acted in the past. Understanding how kamma works gives us great power to fashion our future and who we will become.

Transcript

Okay,

So the next I mentioned in each class will cover a few topics.

So the next part of this to bring in is,

You may have heard about in Buddhism,

About karma.

What is karma?

How does it work?

How is karma part of this discussion about developing our goodness?

So I guess in a simple way of explaining it,

It's explaining it like by saying we will become what we do now.

So the quality of our actions and our thinking and our behavior now will to a large extent influence what we will be in the future.

So it's like our future selves are in our hands.

Our future selves will come from our choices and our decisions that we're making now plus what we've made in the past.

So in that sense we're like a work in progress.

So as we cultivate things now,

These things will be part of our future and they will come to us because we've cultivated them now.

So this is the idea of karma,

That if we make the right causes now,

We will get the right results coming from that at some time in the future.

So either the results will be in the world around us,

The things that happen to us,

Or in our internal world,

Because karma is the process of action and reaction or cause and effect and it's not just about the external world,

It's about our internal world.

So if we're an angry person now,

We're causing ourselves to be an angry person in the future.

We will wake up in the morning and we will have an angry disposition.

And where did the disposition come from?

It's the karmic result of us being angry now.

So what we cultivate each day will reflect in our minds in the future.

This is the idea of karma.

Or what comes into our minds now,

Essentially from the Buddhist viewpoint,

Is coming from our past.

So what our experiences are didn't come from nothing.

Things that come into our mind don't come from nothing.

They come from past causes.

So even the way we think,

Our attitudes,

These dispositions we have,

Are reflections of how we've cultivated our mind in the past.

Things that we focused on,

How we reacted,

How we behaved,

What we thought.

We inherit those things as our present.

So if we want to be a happier person,

If we want to be a clearer person,

If we want our mind to be having many good qualities,

That's achievable.

That's not like a mystery process.

That's perfectly achievable by what we cultivate in the present,

What our choices are now.

So that's sort of the underlying idea of karma,

That we will become what we create.

So in Buddhism,

We don't really believe that our nature has come from a god,

For example,

Or our nature has come from some other being,

Or from our parents,

Or it came from nothing.

Buddhism says our nature,

Our behavior,

Our dispositions,

Have all come from our past.

Either this life,

Or Buddhism talks about previous lives.

But at least in this life,

We can relate to it.

This reading is taken from a book written by Traleg Kyabgong Rinpoche,

Called Karma,

What It Is,

What It Isn't,

And Why It Matters.

Okay,

Thank you.

Karma.

When we enrich ourselves,

Our sense of selfhood blossoms.

In other words,

We have to become what we want to become.

We have the opportunity and the ability to become what we want to become.

This is what the accumulation of wisdom and merit amounts to.

If we have a good thought,

That is meritorious.

If we have a good feeling,

That is meritorious.

If we use our limbs for a good purpose,

That too is meritorious.

We open doors with a sense of conscientiousness,

And wash the dishes with a sense of care and respect.

Not just clanging them around,

Cursing our partner for leaving them.

If we have a good thought,

Even about ourselves,

Thinking,

I'm not a bad person after all.

And if someone does us a little favor,

However meager,

We are appreciative.

All this is meritorious.

By paying attention to all the things that we can pay attention to straight away,

We come to know what it is that we need to do to become the kind of person we want to become.

If we can think the kind of things we should be thinking,

Feel the kind of things we should be feeling,

And if we have the emotional repertoire we need to flourish and live well,

To lead the good life in the true sense of the word,

Then what more is needed?

If we feel satisfied and fulfilled,

Then we don't need anything more.

That is the aim of life.

We can even secure nirvana,

Enlightenment,

Liberation through these means.

Looking at that,

What it means is how we live our life,

Just in our normal everyday living,

Is incredibly powerful.

Whether it be opening the door for someone,

Turning a light on for someone,

Washing the dishes with a happy heart rather than grumpy heart,

Doing things,

Even things we might consider like chores,

But doing them happily,

That can make a big difference to our well-being and others' well-being.

It doesn't mean we have to be some great spiritual practitioner.

It just means if we use care in how we live each day,

How we live in our normal relationship with others,

That's the most important thing,

Because that,

By karma,

Is building our well-being in the future.

Even though you might be able to do some big deal,

The big deal isn't a big deal when you look at it like this.

What's a big deal is how you live your day-to-day life.

Whether you're with others or by yourself doesn't make any difference,

Because each moment is contributing to your future.

Your future will come from the way you live every day.

If you want to become a mindful person,

The only way you can do that is to be more mindful today,

More moments of mindfulness.

If you want to become a kind person or whatever it is,

A happy person,

You can do things.

It's like our default is not consciously chosen by us.

Our default experience is we just accept whatever comes.

We're not making any choices about our mental state.

We're just flowing along,

Going with the flow.

But we can choose to do something,

Say,

Wash the dishes.

We actually have a choice.

We can do it grumpily or we can do it,

Okay,

I'm going to be mindful.

I'm going to think that this is my contribution to our household.

If I don't wash the dishes,

Everyone gets sick.

Everyone doesn't enjoy their meal.

I'm contributing,

And I'm happy to do it.

I'm happy to contribute just washing the dishes.

It doesn't have to be I take everyone out for dinner.

It's how you live moment to moment that has power.

And that can be deliberate choice.

And that will make a difference because how you live moment to moment,

Karmically,

Is making your future.

You'll be the product of those choices that you make,

How you live day to day,

Moment to moment.

So each time you meet someone,

Are you putting anything forward or are you just going with the flow and couldn't care less?

Or are you thinking I can contribute to the quality of this relationship if I've got the right mindset,

If I've got the right attitudes,

If I've got the right thinking?

So this is called a good heart.

And it's the most powerful thing for your future well-being because that's your life.

That's every day.

That's every moment.

So there's nothing that says you can't enjoy washing the dishes or at least have a positive view of it.

You can.

It's not hard,

Actually.

It's just we never tried.

We just go with the flow.

Whatever our default is,

If we're grumpy,

We'll do the dishes being grumpy.

Right?

That's it.

Well,

Okay,

But in the future you'll be grumpy because you made that future when you did the dishes with grumpiness.

So that's your life is in your hands.

So in Buddhism,

We are responsible for our well-being in this sense.

We're responsible for who we'll become.

It's nobody else that's responsible because no one else can make our karma for us.

No one else can make our future mental states for us.

It's us.

We can.

So,

Yeah,

That's this idea of karma.

So in Buddhism,

Basically it's about understanding that there are wholesome mental states.

If we use those,

Our mind will improve over time.

There are unwholesome mental states.

If we use those,

Our mind or our experience,

I won't say our mind as much as our experience,

Will deteriorate.

So our future can get brighter or it can get darker.

That's up to us.

That's our choice.

So Buddhism identifies what are the things that you need to cultivate so that your mind will get brighter,

Your world will get brighter,

Your experience will get brighter.

And what are the things,

If you cultivate,

That your mind will deteriorate?

You'll get duller,

Less energy,

Less clarity as you go on.

So both of those exist.

There are mental states which will make you duller,

Will make you have less clarity,

Will make you deteriorate,

And you'll get more unhappiness out of that.

And there are another set which will make you get clearer,

Make you get brighter,

Make you get happier.

Sign me up for the last one.

That's the ones,

Right?

I'll be first.

Yeah.

So they're all within our control.

None of these are incredibly profound mental states.

These are our how we live each day type mental states is all we're talking about.

So that's essentially what Buddhism is about.

So the things that we cultivate,

For example,

As a few examples,

We cultivate smiling.

Also,

Obviously,

We try to develop mindfulness,

Being in the present,

Because if you go back to the start,

That is our basic awareness that we're exercising when we develop mindfulness.

The mindfulness can grow.

That means the brightness of our mind.

Mindfulness is like the brightness of our mind.

That can grow.

It's like our lamp can grow.

Through mindfulness,

We develop a quality called loving kindness,

Or metta,

Which is the development of love through a series of.

.

.

We do practice of meditation to develop this quality of metta.

It's one of the main meditations in Buddhism,

Which develops love within us,

Not possessive love,

But kindness-based love.

That can grow.

Our mind can have more content of love,

Which means it's like a loving kindness quality that can develop within us more.

Another one would be less judgmental.

We try to not be so critical about the world around us.

There's a million things you can be critical about every day.

Just turn on the telly.

It's just a whole smorgasbord of things to be upset by.

But it doesn't help.

It doesn't help.

There's an infinite amount of things that can upset you,

But focusing on them is not going to contribute to your goodness or your good qualities or your good heart.

It's not that you just pretend they don't exist,

But you just don't get caught by them.

Friendliness,

Of course.

Also in Buddhism,

We have precepts.

Basically,

There's five.

These are the particularly negative actions that we avoid.

We avoid killing.

So that even includes insects.

It includes any sort of living being because we respect them and they have a life.

It may not measure up to ours,

But nevertheless it's the only one they've got.

So we're not going to take away something that's the most precious thing for them.

We respect their world.

We respect their life.

We don't kill others.

There's no such thing as a virtuous person who kills others.

It doesn't make sense.

So no killing,

No lying,

Because we don't want to live with a diet of lies in our future.

We want to find the truth.

So if we make sure that we're truthful,

It means karmically we'll find truth will come back to us.

We'll be able to understand things well.

We won't be confused so much.

We won't get muddled as we get older.

Our mind will be clearer and more intelligent.

No stealing.

There's a third one.

It's called no sexual misconduct,

But it's like no adultery,

I guess you could say,

But it's basically to not destroy your relationships and others' relationships.

It's about looking after relationships in a way that's not damaging.

And the final one is no intoxicants.

So basically in Buddhism it's to not take alcohol or drugs because they do cloud the mind,

But also karmically they're not particularly beneficial for us.

If we want our mind to become clean and bright,

We don't want to take things that make it dull and cloudy.

So those are another group of things that we practice.

And then as we go through the course,

We'll sort of unpack some of these.

One student commented,

Yes,

About the precepts,

They are so self-evident and so demonstrably going to have negative effects on you if you enter into those negative behaviours,

But also so easy to actually not keep those precepts.

And in some ways society makes it very easy not to keep them.

So look,

Because it's not something we've developed or focused on,

Yeah,

We break them,

Right?

But we just recognise,

Hang on,

Hang on,

That wasn't right,

So next time I'm not going to break it.

So it's like you don't jump on yourself because you've stuffed it up.

You're going to stuff it up,

It's just nature.

But you just recognise,

OK,

That's something I've got to fix.

So you deal with it in a positive way.

And they're called training precepts,

By the way.

I didn't tell you that.

They're a process of training.

All of this is a process of training because we're trying to move along a path to get better.

One of the students said,

I always thought of karma as retribution,

But it's good to see it as a positive thing.

It's a positive way to look at things because it means you can.

.

.

There's a process where you can work that will improve you.

The next student said,

You seem to be saying you should try and choose your thoughts and focus on the good thoughts,

Which I get.

But the thing with thoughts,

Especially when you are starting out,

That they are very uncontrolled and you find you are having all sorts of thoughts,

Some that are maybe not good.

But in trying not to have those thoughts and trying to have good thoughts.

.

.

No,

You don't have to try not to have them because,

As you say,

They just arise.

But it's which ones that you act on.

So there can be all sorts of negatives come as long as you don't act them out.

You just see them as the thoughts arising,

But they pass away.

You don't have to join them and shake their hand and then go on a journey with them and then yell at someone.

Maybe you wouldn't yell at somebody,

But you don't have to live out all of those thoughts.

There's some space,

Particularly if you have mindfulness.

You have quite a lot of space in your mind to be able to see.

You don't even have to comment.

You just let it go.

But it's about you can act on ones that are beneficial or you can prompt ones.

You can think,

I'm going to wash these dishes with joy.

I'm going to try it out.

Or I'm going to do it with mindfulness.

I'm going to watch this process of washing as an exercise of mindfulness.

So that's prompting,

Isn't it?

Okay,

So Simon,

Would you like to say a few words?

Because I guess the thing is,

As we talk,

You have a different sort of perception and way of expressing things.

But what do you think is helpful for people here?

Well,

First of all,

I'm excited to share this information with you.

And we really appreciate your questions because they help us to give you the information that you're looking for.

So we encourage you to ask questions and if you've got things that you want to clarify,

By all means.

Buddhism can seem sometimes like impossible,

You know.

How am I supposed to have love and respect for that person that I really find challenging and all that sort of thing.

So it looks like it's very challenging in the beginning.

So what I want to say to you is that it's a practice and it's a training.

And if you commit to it,

You will get better at it and you will find that your life will become easier.

You will find that there are more generous people in your life.

You will find that you have more confidence.

You will find that you can really learn to have a respect for who you are as a person and what you're doing.

So you're less likely to listen when someone says that when someone's trying to suggest that maybe you don't know what you're doing or you shouldn't be doing that or whatever,

You become less reactive to the world around you because you start to develop your own self-respect and your own confidence.

So Buddhism can help you a lot in those areas plus many other things.

But I think that what you have to learn,

One of the first things that is very important to learn is to also be generous to yourself so that when you fail at something that you really wanted to be good at,

It's okay because it's a practice and it means that I'm going to get a little bit better next time.

So sometimes we have this discussion where you might have a big argument with someone and then two days later you realise,

Oh,

I probably should not have done that.

But then the measure of your practice is you have a big argument with someone and then one day later you realise,

Oh,

I probably should not have done that.

And then you have a big argument with someone and an hour later you realise,

I probably should not have done that until you get to the point where halfway through the argument you can stop because you realise what's happening because your mindfulness has increased,

Your generosity has increased,

Your morality has increased.

So you stop finding yourself in these situations because you understand what is actually occurring around you with more clarity and more awareness.

So you can stop sort of stomping around in your life and making mistakes and bumping into people and being bombarded by all the sorts of things.

You can start to sort of gain a sense of your own understanding and confidence.