So good morning.
This week we're going to explore karma.
Karma is a Sanskrit word that literally translates as action.
In the Pali,
The language of the Buddha,
It's kama.
And I will use those terms interchangeably throughout this teaching.
So the word karma can evoke in people all kinds of complicated ideas.
And my intention is to speak of it as something that we can see operating in our day-to-day activities.
We can put aside the ideas of karma as being something that influences us over lifetimes and just look at it at the more immediate.
It's more immediate implications.
The way that we live,
You know,
Day by day in the present moment,
That can influence how we live this whole life.
If we live a life that is with recurring or chronic hostility,
That puts together certain conditions that are very different than if we go through our life with generosity and love.
And one of the ways we can see the operation of karma is in our thought stream.
And that's probably the single most effective way to understand karma,
To see its influences and how it operates day by day in our thinking.
It's said that rumination is one of the leading causes of depression.
So if we're ruminating,
Thinking in such a way that the thoughts are deflating and the thoughts are discouraging and the thoughts are critical,
Having that discouragement,
That fear chronically moving through our system,
Our whole body,
Will influence,
Like that will be influenced by this ongoingness,
Like our actions will be influenced by this chronic movement in our system.
It's kind of like the fish that doesn't see the water they swim in.
We don't see the water,
The mood,
The attitude that we swim in because it's being reinforced by this sort of ongoing rumination.
Sometimes karma is described as the habits,
As like a habit,
An ongoing habit of the mind.
So one of the ways of understanding karma is that when we act in certain ways,
We're building,
We're constructing our response,
Our reactions,
Our character,
Our personality,
Our habits.
All of these are constructions and are leading to making something happen and it takes a bit of work.
You know,
The stream of karma requires effort on our part.
We have to be engaged in creating it on some level and what this can look like is when there isn't intentionality around our actions,
When we're just going about our life with unconsciousness,
When there's just doing,
Doing,
Doing.
You know,
What happens is we get weary and tired and the karmic stream looks like acting and reacting,
Acting and reacting.
And the nature of the actions create like what impacts the future.
So if we act with greed and that that's what's going behind our thinking,
Then that creates a very different momentum in our lives than if we act from generosity.
If we're chronically acting out of aversion,
It creates a very different momentum in our lives than if we act out of love.
The Buddhist emphasis on karma is on the act of constructing and so we see in the teachings of the Buddha that there is less interest in understanding why something happens.
Like something happens and we say,
Oh this must be my karma in the past.
That's not very interesting for the practitioners of the Dharma.
Rather what's interesting is given what's happening,
No matter what it is,
What is the action or reaction from which we're meeting and responding to the focus?
What are we doing in the present?
Not the reason why the present is happening.
That's valuable at times to look at,
The reasons,
But to really get to the heart of the karma teachings is to learn how to act differently in the present moment or the choices to construct things a little differently and one of the primary constructive activities people are doing is through their thinking.
Thinking is constructing and manufacturing ideas and fantasies and stories and interpretations of what's there and it's a tremendous burden.
If it's just done incessantly and compulsively.
Last week we really dove into the not self teaching which supports questioning your thoughts and concepts and perceptions.
Like questioning is this helpful?
Is this beneficial?
And if the answer is no,
To abandon it.
The teachings of the Dharma and the freedom that comes with the Dharma is that it provides a pretty simple map.
If you act and do things that support generosity and ethics and kindness,
Compassion and balance and letting go,
These are actions that are constructing a better self,
A better disposition or a more beneficial stream of momentum that's supportive for happiness in this life.
So I'll stop here today and we'll continue with this inquiry and conversation and in our next session together.
Thank you for your kind attention.
