Karma Is Definite

And good evening to everyone who's here.

I'm tickled to be speaking about karma.

It's one of my favorite topics and I imagine that here we are halfway through the month.

Karma has been the topic for the month and so some of you might be quite familiar with definitions and stuff but in case there's somebody who's here for the first time tonight I want to start with that and then I want to do quite a maybe a longer meditation than usual on rejoicing in our wholesome actions.

But first let's start with a little meditation.

So get in the posture that works best for you.

So I'm in a chair so feet flat on the floor being aware of the contact with your body with the chair or the cushion if you're on a cushion.

Principally keeping your spine straight.

By straightening your spine you straighten your mind.

So just be aware of being in the space,

The contact with the chair.

Notice any side sounds,

Sense in the room in a blurred kind of way just being aware of your body in the space but not tuning in to any particular sense detail.

Lower your eyelids just a little let some light in if you can.

And bring your attention to your breathing for just a moment.

Noticing the in-breath,

The out-breath.

Noticing the sensation of breathing.

Notice how deep or shallow your breath is.

Not without any I mean without any judgment just observing.

Being friends with your breath for a few minutes.

Get in touch with our aspirations for being on this meditation session with this worldwide community tonight.

Perhaps we're coming with a wish to connect,

Wish to find a little peace in their own minds and let's expand that motivation.

Realizing that as we connect here with ourselves and then online with others with a genuine wish to cultivate our good qualities this has an effect.

Positive wholesome effect in the world.

So think about all those people that you can bring to mind that don't have peace of mind in this moment.

And think about the condition of sentient beings in general.

And with a wish to have a positive effect on their lives too.

Let's gather here with the motivation to bring greater happiness to all beings including ourselves.

And to cultivate all good qualities so that we can really be of benefit to others.

Okay.

Helps to settle down a little huh?

So karma karma karma means action.

You probably have heard this a few times since the beginning of this month.

And when you know when the Buddha was becoming awakened when he was sitting under that Bodhi tree and realized coming into that state of complete omniscience and understanding one of the things that he saw as he was becoming awakened was that our situation in cyclic existence is not so great.

Generally speaking it's not that everything is suffering per se but that there are but it's pretty unsatisfactory in terms of the fact that we can continually meet with problems whether we want them or not.

And even though we find happiness it's comes and goes really fast.

In fact the harder we try to hang on to it the more it seems to like go through our fingers like sand or even not even that solid like soap bubbles going through our hands that kind of happiness.

And so part of what out of his great compassion a part of what he he showed us was well look all of our suffering our most gross painful physical mental suffering as well as even the finest most delicate dissatisfaction in our mind all of that has causes.

And principally the causes that we're caught under are the results of our karma our actions and then all of our disturbing mind states that bring those about.

So everything that we do under the influence of our ignorance our craving our attachment our anger jealousy doubt our pride all of those things that take over the mind propel us to do things that no causes difficulty.

And so this teaching on karma is actually extremely profound in helping us take responsibility to start creating more and more causes for happiness in our lives.

So that's what I wanted to get to tonight.

There are so as we said karma means action and the idea is that every action of body speech and strong actions of mind have plant like a little energy trace in our mind streams that stay with us.

And when the conditions are right when all the things come together for like this little seed we could call it metaphorically to burst forth and ripen when all the water all the nutrients all the heat boom our karma ripens.

And the result of that could either and so it's either our virtuous or happy results or our unhappy results.

Either one is a result of our past actions it's the law of cause and result.

So when we know this then we can start paying attention to well what kind of causes am I creating?

And we can be very deliberate about the kinds of causes that we create.

So there are four properties of karma which are important.

So the first one is the title of this talk.

Karma is definite.

What does that mean?

Karma is definite in that wholesome actions definitely ripen in pleasant and happy experiences.

Unwholesome actions definitely ripen in unpleasant to painful experiences.

It's quite direct.

The second quality is that karma is expanding and that means a small seed can grow into a big result and they always cite the example of like a small seed can grow into a big tree.

So karma can have you know an action can have a big result even if it's quite small.

The third is that if you don't create the cause you don't get a result.

You think this is self-evident but it's really about you know we can spend a lot of time praying for something good to happen but if we haven't created the cause for it that prayer probably not going to be enough to make that happen.

The fourth property that's important to know about is if we do create the cause it's never lost.

It may take a long long long long long long long time for that result to ripen but it never goes away.

Except with the case of virtuous karma we can destroy the seed by the power of our anger or our really distorted views.

In the case of our non-virtuous or unwholesome actions we can mitigate the results through purification practices.

And next week I'm on for next Wednesday I'd like to do some purification practice meditation with us because we all have things we regret.

And the Buddha was very kind in giving us ways to transform our minds.

We want to really kind of help relieve that.

So it's important I think really important for us Westerners raised in a culture where a result where reward and punishment is a really part of our paradigm.

To get that karma is not about reward and punishment.

There's no from the Buddhist point of view there's no kind of grand jury in the sky grand jury in your head grand jury in heaven grand jury anywhere saying you are guilty and you are rewarded.

No there's it's none of that kind of thinking it's simply a cause and result.

It's quite scientific in a way.

You put a seed in the ground the Sun is there the temperature is warm enough you put a little water the seed grows.

You put in a carrot seed you do not grow a potato.

You put a potato in the ground you don't get a carrot.

It's as simple in some ways as that that aspect of it.

Now the complexities of karma they say are so complex that only and a really enlightened being can give you the minute details of how come this happened and that happened and that happened and that happened.

But very generally this thing that karma is definite in that wholesome actions bring happiness unwholesome actions bring difficulties suffering pain or even discomfort.

Even something as mild as that.

If I have an unpleasant feeling it is a result of a past negative action.

This is liberating totally because then we don't have anybody to blame anymore and then we can say to ourselves wow if happiness comes from virtuous and wholesome actions then I can be doing that really intentionally.

So we're already doing virtuous actions and wholesome actions every day and we're not doing it so consciously.

But it's okay to use this to be intentional about creating greater happiness for ourselves and guess what everybody else benefits too.

So it's a win-win situation completely.

So I wanted to do some meditation tonight on the ten virtuous actions okay.

So one of the things that Buddha taught also right off the bat he said okay if you want to begin to take responsibility and change your own mind change your experience to have greater happiness then number one restrain from these ten things refrain from doing these actions.

Killing,

Stealing,

Taking what hasn't been freely given,

Engaging in sexual misconduct or unwise sexual behavior that harms people.

Those are three of body.

Also refrain from lying,

From divisive speech,

So speaking badly in a way that people start thinking badly about each other.

Refrain from harsh speech words that hurt people whether they're done in angry loud voices or sweet you know those sort of sarcastic sweet voices regardless of the tone if they harm people intentionally if you have that intent then that's also one of those things to refrain to restrain yourself from.

And then the fourth one of speech is idle talk which is just blah blah blah blah blah blah for no reason except to hear ourselves talk.

And then there are three mental ones one is strong covetousness like really craving somebody else something somebody else has and planning to get it.

And it can be a craving shopping mind as much as a craving you know craving your neighbors something.

The second one is ill will or malicious mind really just goes around and round and round about how much we want to get back at somebody who's harmed us.

And then the third one of third mental one is really going after wrong views like really you know adamantly saying I don't believe that people are basically good for example or I don't believe in this karma business my at my actions don't have any ethical result.

I mean those kinds of thinking can be quite harmful.

It's not to say that you have to say oh yeah I believe in karma and therefore I'm good it's not that but if we're open to the possibility open-minded to the possibility that this might be an explanation of how things work more like that.

So it's the stubborn wrong view that well kind of a nihilistic view that gets us in trouble.

The ten virtuous actions are the opposite.

The virtuous or wholesome actions come when we restrain from doing any of these ten non virtues.

So anytime that you're not killing is virtuous.

Anytime that you're not using harsh speech that's also I mean when you have an opportunity to and don't that's a wholesome action.

And further when you do the opposite that's also a wholesome action.

So for example when we're a situation where we're really protecting life whether you fish a bug out of the toilet so it doesn't drown or whether you happen to be there and save somebody from drowning in the ocean something as small to as big as that all of these are wholesome actions.

And we do them.

So I want to spend some time rejoicing in our wholesomeness to really acknowledge that we are creating great causes for future happiness.

I also want to begin that by saying simply having a human life in which we have the opportunity to come together like in the Dharma daily gathering.

This is a ripening of our virtuous wholesome actions in the past.

Good comes from good.

I think there's a song in the sound of music that says something like that.

Nothing comes from nothing nothing ever could.

So sometime in my youth or childhood I must have done something good.

Here we are.

As a result of something good.

So take a moment get back in your meditation posture.

I'm going to go through these ten and we're going to just do a little life review and do some rejoicing.

So be flat,

Back straight,

Settle into your breath for a moment.

Now bring to mind a time any time in your life when you had the opportunity to either had the opportunity to take the life of another being and didn't and or an opportunity to actually save a life or care for a life in a certain kind of in a life-giving way.

It could be a very small thing could be a very big thing in your life but whenever it comes to mind rejoice.

Wow that was a wholesome action I'm rejoicing in that virtue.

Then bring to mind a chance that you might have had in your life to steal to take something that wasn't given and you chose not to.

That could mean somebody gave you too much change and you gave it back.

It could mean having a real opportunity to take something big and you decided not to.

And it could also mean taking care of someone else's property in a really caring way.

And when that situation comes to mind rejoice in your wholesome action.

And then we can bring to mind a situation where we used our sexuality wisely and kindly.

So maybe you were extremely attracted to someone but because you were already in a relationship you chose not to follow it.

Maybe you knew someone was really had was very attracted to you and yet not to hurt them you just didn't let that blossom into something or you didn't leave them on some way that we were very kind and caring about our sexual sexuality.

And rejoice in that as a virtue section.

And then we'll go to the virtuous actions of speech.

Situations in which I'm going to do a couple of them together.

We would have told the truth when you had an opportunity not to.

And also where you had the opportunity to speak in a way that really brought people together,

Reconciled them as opposed to divided them.

That your words were healing and brought about harmony.

And rejoice in those two virtuous actions of speech.

Bring to mind a situation in which you had the opportunity to speak harshly and didn't.

Or or and an opportunity you had and have to offer encouraging words,

Support,

Kindness,

A smile.

And rejoice in the virtue of these two kinds of virtuous actions of speech.

And then finally recall a conversation that was just a lot of blah blah or maybe kind of diverting into gossip about someone when you stepped in and actually turned it into a meaningful conversation.

The opposite of idle talk,

Actually having a meaningful,

Caring connection to go with your speech.

And rejoice in the virtuous actions.

So we'll stop with these first seven of body and speech.

They're the most gross ones anyway.

But this is a meditation that's really beneficial to do especially when you start to get a little bit down about,

Oh my practice doesn't do much or la da da da da,

To really begin to think about all the virtuous actions that we've done.

To rejoice in those and rejoicing actually makes the karma of it even stronger.

And this also helps us to get more intentional about doing even a small virtuous action has a happy result.

So I'm encouraging people to really notice that.