Kamma in Samsara, Kamma leading Beyond Samsara

Describes the way to live and practice being mindful of kammic conditions, along the path going beyond worldly conditions. Giving personal examples with Q & A.

Transcript

I'd like to try to tell some personal stories as well, Because I think it makes it, You know, We human beings, We are relational, Aren't we? So it's nice to hear stories from the person who's speaking, Try to make it relevant, And then quotes from suttas and some teachings from enlightened beings as well. So I have a very deep belief in karma myself. I understand that this conditioned world that we live in, That this law of karma is very powerful, And it's the power that's behind much of what we experience. And that essentially the Buddha explained that there is wholesome and there is unwholesome in this world of conditions, And there is skillful and there is unskillful. And it's very important to understand and it's very important to have teachers, And the Buddha is the foremost teacher who explains to us what is skillful and what is unskillful. Because unfortunately we wouldn't be able to work it out by ourselves. This is because of vidya, Not knowing, And moha, Delusion. It means that we can't see things according to the truth. So in the beginning we need to listen to people who are wise, Seek out teachers, Read suttas. And so that's the first, And the Buddha explained, He gave his Mangala Sutta, The Discourse on the Highest Blessings. It's the very first line, Is don't associate with fools, Associate with wise people. So he was giving this, A deva that came to him in Jetavana, And it said, A female deva, And it said that her radiance was so bright and pure it filled the whole monastery. And she said to the Buddha, She said, Lord Buddha, Devas as well as human beings are interested in being happy. So what brings the highest blessings? The very first line of that sutta was, Don't associate with foolish people, Associate with wise people. And that's because in the beginning we need to associate with people who are wiser than ourselves, So that we can understand what is skillful, What is unskillful, What makes good karma, What makes bad karma. I'm just going to give a little example from my life a few years ago. About four years ago I was an abbot of Wat Nanachat's branch monastery, Which is in a national park on the border of Laos, In the remote part of Ubon Ratchathani. And one day I sat in full lotus, And I noticed an interesting tearing sensation in my lower abdomen and a dull aching pain which didn't go away. I thought that's interesting. And when I got up from my meditation I noticed that there was something squishy sticking out in my abdomen area. And then I called a friend who's a doctor and said that sounds like an igwai no hernia, A janasalo. And it turned out that that's what it was, That anyone else had a hernia in this room? Not much fun. So what happens is a little biology lesson. I think we all start out as women, Don't we, As fetuses. And at a certain point something happens in the chromosomes where some of those females become male. And the testicles form inside the fetus and then they have to come through these little holes in the abdomen down into the scrotum. Now those little holes stay there as something of a weak point in the male body. And at a certain point if there's too much pressure your intestines can burst through that hole. And this used to happen a lot in the old days. And what would happen is your intestines end up in where your testicles are, Very unpleasant, Very painful. And people in Thailand were telling me, Yeah my grandfather had it, Yeah my father had it. In the old days they used to have to get out and kind of squish it all back in and tie a belt around and keep it. It was very painful. So what happens is if you don't treat it the hole gets bigger and more of the intestines go. Anyway these days you can treat it, Thank goodness. But anyway, So probably some kind of karma. But I went, I was fortunate because I knew the director of Bangkok's second best hospital. Sounds very impressive doesn't it, Wait till you hear my story. I called her up and I said, Looks like I might need some treatment. She said please come down. And I went down and everyone was very nice. And I met the doctor, Very nice man. And he suggested putting in a gauze pad made of nylon and stitching it in so that it basically blocks up the hole. And then that membrane will then grow over, There's a little membrane that's over that hole and that membrane will grow over. So I went in for the surgery. It was a very interesting experience. I think wages are a bit cheaper in Thailand so there's a lot of staff in the hospitals. And there's this sense of this whole team of very nice people. I was lying down on a surgery bed and they were about to give me a general anaesthetic. And this nice male nurse, This nice female nurse, This nice anesthesiologist, This nice doctor, Everything okay, Everything's fine, Spreading meta to people. And there's one person in the room and I have a bad feeling about her. I don't know who she is but I just get the sense of I don't trust that one. But I'm spreading love and kindness and one, Two, Three, Boop, Gone. And so then I came out of this surgery and I did have some pretty good mindfulness because the first thought I had was you've just had surgery. Then the next sensation I noticed was a lot of pain in the abdomen area, A lot of pain because it was 12 stitches and they had to cut through the muscle tissue and then move things around to get that pad in and stitch it in place. So there was a lot of pain. And so the next thought was ouch. And then I was lying there and someone approached me and guess who it was? It was the one person that I felt like I didn't trust. And she asked me Ajahn, Do you have any pain? Yeah I do, I have quite a bit of pain. So she said Ajahn, Would you please note it, Is it from one to ten? And I'd say hmm, I'd say it's about an eight and a half. She said oh well just wait a few more minutes and then the anaesthetic should start to work. That's the one coming in on the drip. And so we waited ten minutes. And I remember in that ten minutes thinking okay well this is definitely the most physical pain I've had this lifetime. Okay well try not to make a problem out of it. But it was really a lot of pain, Cutting through muscle tissue in the abdomen, Twelve stitches, Moving things around. And she came back and she said any improvement Ajahn? I said no. It's still about an eight and a half. So she called the doctor and the doctor says well if he says it's painful, It's painful, Give him some more morphine. So she hooked up another tube of morphine into the drip and she said okay Ajahn, Just ten more minutes. I said okay, So at this stage it's twenty minutes, We're going to go ten more minutes. And I remember thinking okay you have two choices, Either you jump off the bed and start screaming and throwing things around or you stay perfectly still and don't do anything at all. And there was a lot of tension beginning to form in this area around that wound. Just kind of bearing with that pain. Now ten minutes later, So that would take us to the half an hour point I guess, About ten minutes later, I heard this lady walk past the drip and I heard her take a gasp of breath and say, I forgot to open it. And then she turned on the morphine and everyone else in the room was like, Oh, And everyone's like, Oh, Nobody's looking. And I thought oh, That's what's going on. And then of course within about three minutes I had a double dose and it was great. But there was a sense, Wasn't there? I was contemplating, Even now I was contemplating, Well this has to be karma, Doesn't it? Because here I am in Thailand's second best hospital. Everyone's being nice to me. They're treating me for free. And the one person in that room, In that surgery room that I had a funny feeling about is the very one that's there when I regain my consciousness and the very one that forgets to turn on the anesthetic. I said, Well isn't that interesting? Contemplating for many years by that stage and I thought, Well okay. So I just have to accept this. I have to accept that this is karma. So in the end I didn't even tell the director, I didn't tell anyone about the experience. Now that I'm in another country I feel like I can talk about it. And I just accept that that was my karma, That even I came out of that room and there's a very nice monk attendant there and anything you can do to help you. But the story isn't finished. There was still a bit more karma to work through. What had happened was because of the tension in that area, The area around the bladder sphincter, If anyone knows much about physiology, Had got very tight, Fair enough, Because of 40 minutes of just bearing with basically like a stab wound in the abdomen. And so of course they couldn't pass urine. So has anybody had a catheter before? And they're not much fun either are they? So they thought, They said, Okay Ajahn, Your bladder's full and we need to remove the urine. So they thought, Well you look like a big bloke. So they chose the biggest one. And so they put that in, They have to put it all the way through the penis and up through the sphincter and into the bladder and then the urine comes out. So that was another interesting exercise in contemplating feelings. And then they took it out because it's very important after an anesthetic and after a wound that the body passes urine naturally. Many people who've had babies, People who've had surgery know this. So unfortunately two hours later I still couldn't pass urine. So it turned out that I got four of those in 12 hours. I was sticking it in, Taking it out, Sticking it in, Taking it out. And finally I said to them, I came again and I said, Could you please give me the smallest one? And then I said, Leave it in overnight. Because I just knew that those muscles had got so tense from that pain and they just needed to relax. And so it did and the next day it was fine and the kind of more gross pain from the wound had healed. I think nerve tissues, The body knows how to heal itself fairly quickly, But when the wound is fresh, There's a lot of pain there. So it was good to contemplate, Okay you have a human body, This is the kind of pain you can feel with a human body, Good to understand that. And also the kind of thing, The other contemplation is, Okay, When you have a sensory body, A sentient body in this realm, We are subject to pain. The Buddha explains that the skillful things that you do and the wholesome things that you do are going to ripen as pleasant feelings and things which induce happiness. But the unskillful things that you do and the bad things that you do is going to ripen as painful feelings. So that was a good lesson. It was basically contemplating, Okay, So I've quite possibly harmed beings in the past, Many lives. And sometimes this is a thing about samsara, We understand it's a very dangerous place because sometimes doing unskillful things, We don't need to have had a bad intention. This can just be like catching food for the family if you're a man or if you're the woman, You might be the one that has to cook the chicken. But I think it really is, What we do to other beings who are conscious is going to have a karmic result. I've got a friend in Ugonrachatani, She's a doctor, Very nice lady, She helps lots of people, And she has a terrible lower back pain and it seems to never go away. And so I asked her, Because I've observed some of the habits of North East Thailand, I asked her when she was young, Did she ever used to catch frogs for her mum or for her family? She said yes she did because in North East Thailand in the hot season there isn't much protein, It doesn't rain. So they actually eat frogs and insects. And so they make a frog chilli paste and they eat it with sticky rice and they think it's delicious. I don't think it's delicious. Anyway, So I asked her, What they do is to keep the frogs fresh because they didn't have refrigerators either, Is they snap their spine and then they leave them in a bucket of water so that basically they're alive but they can't hop away. Okay, So this is common practice. And so I asked her, I said, Well when you were a little girl how many of those frogs did you catch for your mum? And she said Ajahn, It must have been thousands. And so now even though she's like, As far as I'm concerned, Made offerings to Arahants, Been on pilgrimages, Led pilgrimages, Meditates every day, Keeps the five precepts strictly, This lower back pain just never goes away. Now at a certain point it will have to go away because karmas arise, They stay for some time and they cease depending on the kind of merits or the bad karmas that we've made. So I'm very confident that at a certain point her back pain will go away. But it's been around for a good number of years now and I like to tell these kind of stories because it shows that sometimes there's this very clearly discernible direct correlation isn't there. And I live in a realm where I truly believe karma is real and the things that you do and how you affect other conscious beings is going to have a direct consequence for you. But it's not just the negative thing, Is it? There's also the positive karmic repakas. So the good things we do ripen as a result. I'm going to tell another story now, An interesting story. I like to tell interesting stories. So when I was in Ladakh last year, I told people a few times I did an extended period of retreat in India last year. I was very fortunate. And one of the places I went was in Ladakh, Which is a Buddhist area of the Indian Himalayas between Tibet and Pakistan. And we were driving, My friend Francois and he'd hired a driver. We were going to a Himalayan lake at 5, 000 meters and we were also involved in helping to sponsor treating nomads, Eye treatment for nomads, Because the nomads up in that height have eye problems because there's too much solar radiation and reflection from snow. So there was a group of Australians there who were treating for free these nomads' eyes and I knew the leader of that group and we were going to participate. But also I was just interested in meditating in the Buddhist Himalayas, What's that like? And so we were driving for many hours and we did this really nice puja and we got to meditate at 5, 000 meters, Which I think was 5, 200 meters. And a very beautiful place called Somareeri Pass in Ladakh. And I was meditating and doing this puja in this place where you can just see this little mountain here with a bit of white snow, This mountain here with a bit of white snow, This mountain here with a bit of white snow. And it was like being in this huge lotus with snow, Snow mountain petals. It's just this blue sky with no clouds and the sky was diamond clear. It was very beautiful. It was one of my favorite pujas. I was just doing my puja to empty space. It was very nice. But then we drove for another two hours and my friend Franco had terrible altitude sickness so he had a terrible headache. I had my terrible headache for the first week all night, This throbbing pain that wouldn't go away. But then after that my body seemed to adjust. But he, Every time we went another 100 meters, His body, He'd get a bit more altitude sickness. And so we were driving and we were approaching this lake. It was not the big lake but it was a smaller lake. It was this beautiful turquoise green color and the sky was this beautiful blue. And we were approaching it and I could see it in the distance. Oh isn't that beautiful? And I said to my friend Franco, Do you mind if we stop there and meditate a little while? Because I've never meditated next to a Himalayan lake before. And he said, Well, I've got a splitting headache and the place where we're going is also near a lake and it's another hour or so along. So how about we just go there first? And I thought, Well fair enough. He has a terrible headache. Look at his face. Yeah, He looks terrible. So we better just go there. Now this had, What happened next had nothing to do with my personality or any kind of psychic power. But I would assume it has to do with karma and merit. So what happened was as we were approaching this lake, There's an army truck in front of us and there's another, There's a small four wheel drive stopped and the army truck stops. And there's talking. And then we get up to that army truck and the four wheel drive. And it's hard to explain, But basically there's nothing. There's no village, There's no town, There's not even a tree. But at this particular juncture, There are three, Three cars. And the driver asked, What's up? When it turns out that the four wheel drive had a problem with the wheel, Needed to change a wheel or something, The army truck didn't have the right tool and only our driver had the right tool. So we had to stop by the lake. And I said, Well, I guess I'll meditate. And my poor friend with his, With his headache. And so I went off and I was meditating. I meditated for 45 minutes and I was thinking, Oh yeah, It is really nice meditating by Himalayan lakes. There's the sense of emptiness and silence. And I think a bit longer would be nice. And the motorbike went past and it turned out that the motorbike also had a problem. And it turned out that our driver also had the tool to fix it. And so I noticed there's still something going on. And I said, I sat for another half an hour. I said, Okay, Now I'm content. I got to meditate next to this turquoise lake under the Himalayan sky. And I went back, My poor friend, And they drove off. And he says, Ajahn, Ajahn, I can't believe it. He said, We haven't seen cars for hours. There's no village, There's no town. You say you want to meditate and two cars break down right in this spot. And meanwhile, I'm here with a headache. And I said, Well, I'm sorry, Francois, There's no factor of intention here. I was perfectly happy to go to the other lake, But whatever, This is how it happened. But again, I just think sometimes you can see karma a bit more clearly, Isn't it? On that occasion, The Ajahn got to do what he wanted to do. I don't get to do what I want to do every time. On that occasion, I did. And again, My belief in karma is these things must be karmically conditioned. That certainly as a monk who teaches meditation and encourages meditation, You are helping other people to experience some peacefulness. And you're giving other people that kind of container to experience some peacefulness. So one of the ways that might ripen in terms of karmic fruition is opportunities to meditate when you want to and to experience peacefulness when you want to. That's just one possibility. So the five precepts, Of course, Are designed, Recommended to help us to make good karma and to not make bad karma. That's one of the fundamental points behind the precepts, Is that they're to support us in doing wholesome karma and to restrain unwholesome karma. And we need to understand that this karmic rule, It's not something that's functioning sometimes. It's not a partial law. If something is a law of nature, Well then it's a law. And if something is occurring sometimes, Well then it's occurring all the time. So again, This can be seen in really, Sometimes we can see really obvious examples. Sam was telling me this morning after offering breakfast that when she was a 12 year old, She heard this horrible story. I like to alternate happy stories with horrible stories because this is it, Good karma and bad karma. She was 12 that a servant of the neighbors had had a baby and that baby after being born had been chopped up and thrown in the rubbish. So it's like, Well, I was watching that footage recently of the slaughtering the cows in Indonesia. I'm sure many people saw this story of how the cows have been killed in Indonesia and it's like the center. So this is the kind of way that that kind of karma could ripen. If you spend a period of time in your life slaughtering other beings that don't want to die, Shortening their lifespan, This is how it could ripen. I don't know, For a number of lives, The moment you're born, Someone chops you up and you're separated from your life. For me, This is the only thing that can explain that kind of occurrence. There has to be a karmic cause. And then if you watch that footage, These people for eight hours a day are killing beings and chopping them up. I remember watching this, Many people were horrified thinking it's against the rights of the animals and really concerned about the animals. And then this whole question comes up, Is killing a being that doesn't want to be being ever humane, Is it ever ethical? I think that's the real question. You can try to kill them a bit more peacefully, But basically beings want to live and if you kill them they don't want to die. They do experience distress. But more importantly, In terms of us wanting to have a, If you get born as a human being, Wanting to have a lifespan, Wanting to have your opportunities, Wanting to make it to adulthood, The implications are obvious. It's like there's a story, Sam saw with her own eyes, But the baby was killed moments after its birth. So this has to have a karmic cause. One could deduce that quite possibly having killed many beings in past lives. So again, That's the first precept, Isn't it? Don't kill and then don't steal. So how many people in this lifetime have had that experience of something being stolen from them? So this is fairly common, But probably we've stolen. I remember Ajahn Anand, My teacher, Has given me a few very nice blessed things. In Thailand, Thai people like amulets and they probably like them too much, But it's a part of the culture and he's given me a few really nice things, Special. Among amulets you have ones with even better blessings and even better energies and there's a whole kind of a cult around it. So he's given me some very special things and I gave away, I think, Four out of five and I kept one. I thought, I'm going to keep this one, This special thing from my teacher. Of course, After having given away four, That one that was my favourite got stolen. And then you would think, You're in Thailand and I remember I placed my monk's one sleeve warm for the cold season shirt that we wear under the robe on the high seat under the hall and it had this little amulet attached to it and it was hanging down a little. I remember seeing it when I placed it there and then I came back and it wasn't there. So what that meant was someone has gone to the dharma seat and stolen consciously amongst a blessed object from a monk's item of clothing on the dharma seat under the dharma hall. It's pretty amazing. And I asked my teacher about it and I said, Have I stolen really precious things before? Because that was like my favourite thing. And he said, No, You were just heedless. Thai people love these things and when they see it they can't resist. He said you should take care of it. So he didn't seem to think it was particularly, But I think it must have been. But at the same time, Another interesting story is like, When you give away things that you like, Like I said, I gave away four out of five, Well then it's possible to get more things. And it's like, It's just a witness thing here. So recently I attended the Dalai Lama's teachings, Most people know, And I gave him, I gave him one of my favourite things. I'll tell him more stories about karma. A few years ago somebody gave me a mala, Prayer beads made out of amber. That's about five years ago now. And I really liked them. It's beautiful, Golden yellow colour like sunlight. And I gave them to Ajahn Anand. And Ajahn Anand has no need for prayer beads. He can just do his samadhi without anything. But there's a sense of when you have something nice you want to give it to your teacher. So I gave it to him. And then last time I saw that, I attended the Dalai Lama's teachings two years ago, Ajahn Samadho gave me a nice Buddha statue to give to the Dalai Lama. So I did. A beautiful carved from stone Buddha statue. So then what was interesting is last year someone gave me a carved Buddha statue made from amber. Isn't that interesting? On one level I've given away yellow amber, Which is my favourite thing at the time, And then I gave away a Buddha. And what came back was a yellow amber Buddha. So that's very interesting. Now most recently I gave that to the Dalai Lama. Just last week I said, Okay, Well I want to give nice things to these special beings. And so I was listening to the Dalai Lama's teachings and I remember thinking, I must have caught this from Thailand or maybe I had this habit in the past. Because before I was a monk I wasn't into nice things, Like sacred things. I just wanted peaceful mind states. But living in Thailand for 15 years you develop a kind of an appreciation. And so every now and then you like to have a nice thing. And I practice giving away the nice things that I have, The special things that I have. I make a point to give them away. But I remember thinking after listening to the Dalai Lama's teachings I just had this thought, I want some small thing which has been blessed by the Dalai Lama. Now what's very interesting is I didn't even know that there was this thing called the silent auction where people could make a donation and there were three things blessed by the Dalai Lama. And then they drew by raffle. Then someone would win one of those three items and make a donation to a charity. And so this lady here, Chui Wan, Her name is, Chinese Malaysian lady, She was blessed objects. It was a watch. And so yesterday she came to me after the end of the day of meditation and she said, I have a feeling Ajahn, I want to make an offering to you and your monastery. And so she gave me that watch, That little thing which is blessed by the Dalai Lama. And there were only three. So again I just tell this story because I'm trying to illustrate karma. That if you give away your special things, Special things will come back. And it's like a, Now when I look at that special thing, I've got a watch blessed by the Dalai Lama. You know, I have to train myself. It's not because I'm special. It's not because I get what I want all the time. Let's just understand that this is a result of karma. Having given away blessed special things, Sometimes, Sometimes if I want a blessed special thing, It can come back. But of course when I look at that thing, I have to recollect the fact that the Dalai Lama's virtues, He gets up every morning at 3. 30. Often I don't get up till 5. So I have to remind myself, Okay, Look, The Dalai Lama gets up at 3. 30. I use this thing to train myself and recollect his example, His discipline, His compassion, That kind of thing. So again, Just another story about like one thing got stolen, Must have stolen things in past lives. Another thing is given, Have given things in past lives, Have given in this life also. But one thing that we can deduce is if we do steal things, If we take things which aren't given at some point, Things will be taken from us. And then we have the next precept, Isn't it? Sexual misconduct. So this one is, I think it seems so reasonable to the mind which is impassioned to just want a little bit of fun. Now to the self view which is experiencing that kind of delusion, It seems very reasonable. But the consequence of how it makes your partner feel if you sleep with another person, This is I think why it makes really bad karma, Is the hurt feelings. People get very attached to their partners and there's that sense of when the other partner sleeps with another person, That terrible feeling of hurt that that person has. So this makes a lot of karma. Whether a person wants to hurt the person or not, That's the consequence. So I think this rule of trying to have one partner with whom you have a committed loving relationship is very, Very important. And it's just to understand that if there is infidelity, Then there is consequences, That people have hurt feelings. And I've had some experiences in this life and I asked some of my teachers about it. So every now and then, I have a lot of friends in Thailand, I'm a fairly friendly person. I have a lot of friends, A lot of monk friends. In a couple of communities, There's one or two people that just really don't like me. And the sense of ill will and anger, Even they just, I see them and they see me, It's another monk. The sense of really not liking and a sense of aversion that you know how you feel it in your stomach. Oh, That person really doesn't like me. So that's a very unpleasant feeling. And this particular monk is very close to one of my teachers. I won't mention any names, But. So it makes it difficult. You want to see your teacher and then there's this, Every time you come close, There's this complex relationship and there's this unpleasant energy which nobody likes to be near. So I actually asked my teacher, I said, What's going on? I haven't done anything to deliberately hurt this person in this lifetime. And he said, Acharnath Chö, He says, You have a lot of metta, You have a lot of friends. He says, But every now and then you're going to meet people who just really don't like you. I mean, They really don't like you. And I said, So why is that? And he said, Achalo, You have broken women's hearts in the past. So that was a very interesting answer. It's like having possibly hurt people in past lives and now ripening as, Because what's the result when someone loves you and you decide that you're bored and you want a different one or whatever? How does that person feel? That person feels a lot of rejection, That person feels a lot of grief, They experience a lot of forms of aversion essentially. They don't want it to have been like that. They don't want what happened to have happened. They don't want to be separated from what they've been separated from. They want this thing that they don't have. They experience a lot of grief, Don't they? The person, The jilted lover experiences grief, Sorry, Lamentation, Pain, Grief and despair. So then if we do that to beings, Well, There's going to be a consequence. So here I am as a monk and a celibate and not trying not to jilt anybody. But there I am trying to come close to my teacher and there is this energy, This intense ill will from someone who really doesn't like me. And I ask my teacher, What's the karmic cause? And he says, Yeah, That third precept. So it's very interesting, Isn't it, That even as a celibate monk, If you've broken these precepts in the past, There are consequences. So untruthfulness. So if we're untruthful, Anyone in the room like to be lied to? Anyone in the room like it when they feel that they're being deceived or cheated? Anybody experience that? Lots of people nodding their heads. So we don't want to be lied to. We don't want to be cheated. But if we lie to people, It's going to happen. So we understand karma. We have to be truthful. There are other implications to this precept as well. Now, If a student of Dhamma, You want to realize truths, Well then it's fundamentally important to be truthful. Because whatever karma you make with untruthfulness, This is a very, Very important principle for those who want to realize the ultimate truth. Even white lies, Be very careful. When it's also a fact that there are teachers and there are teachers. So some teachers aren't as good as other teachers and some teachings aren't as clear as other teachings. So we all need to have good teachers who can articulate teachings correctly. And there is a real danger if you meet a teacher who hasn't quite got it right and who teaches something which isn't quite correct. This is dangerous. So if you want to meet a teacher who's going to teach you about the truth correctly, You want to have made as little obstructive karma as possible in this area of truthfulness. So in this area of deceiving, If we deceive, We will be deceived. If we cheat, We'll be cheated. If we obstruct the truth, If we obscure the truth, The truth will be obstructed and obscured. So it's very important. Be really careful in this area of truthfulness. I think even in the area of tax probably, A country like Australia, Just because I remember how I used to think before I was a monk, Well stealing from the government is not the same. Because the government is the government. It's not like something else. But in terms of, And I've done that I confess, But anyway, I'm trying to make up for it. In terms of making our auspicious, We want to make auspicious karma only. We don't want to make any obstructions in this area of truthfulness. So it's okay to be squeaky clean and then understanding that in the future people will be squeaky clean with you, Hopefully. And then the last one, Intoxication. So the most important one about intoxication is that, This is very often said, Is once you break this one, The other ones go pretty quickly, The precepts. So if it's drinking and to the point of inebriation, Intoxication or other forms of drugs, It's very difficult then to be mindful of the other four precepts. Speech is usually the first to degenerate, A few exaggerations, A bit of a lie and harsh speech, You start teasing people, Hurting their feelings, So the speech goes first. Then the other stuff. But the other thing, More subtle, Is these states of confusion that we have, That we all have, A sense of coming to want to meditate and then just being a sense of confusion. And also the challenges that we all have in the area of maintaining focus. So if you want to have clarity, If you don't want to be experiencing painful forms of confusion, And if you want to maintain your focus, This precept is fundamentally important. I think it's good to understand that basically we're confused enough, Put it simply. We're already experiencing enough confusion, Enough delusion, Enough lack of focus. So why? Please, Why add to that? Why add more confusion, More delusion, More intoxication? And why? The important thing to understand about sati, Mindfulness, Is that I think it's a delicate quality. Although it's there in the mind all the time, There's good mindfulness and there's weak mindfulness. There's clear mindfulness and there's fuzzy mindfulness. Now if we want to succeed in our meditation training we need to have good, Clear mindfulness. Good, Clear mindfulness grows under certain conditions or is revealed under certain conditions. When we break these precepts we damage the mindfulness or we damage the conditions, We support mindfulness. When we keep them that mindfulness is able to become clear. It's as though it's distilled away from diluting influences or diluting influences. It's like something growing in a hothouse under protective circumstances. But if you take that, Suppose like an orchid or something, Or lily, And suppose you take it out and you put it in the full sun, What's going to happen to it? Or suppose you take it out and you put it in the snow, The icy cold forms of anger and harsh speech. There goes that beautiful stuff of quality or the passionate forms of lust and we let that burn the mind. What's left of your orchid of mindfulness after doing that? It can be regenerated but basically it slows down the process, Doesn't it? So we don't want to slow down the process. We understand that the process is already a little bit difficult, That we need a lot of supportive influences to succeed. So these five precepts we understand that they're supporting our growth in mindfulness, Good mindfulness is necessary to deepen our wisdom, To have insight. So then we understand that it's not just a matter of people saying, Moralizing and saying that you should be good and you shouldn't be bad and these things are bad. It's not that simplistic. We're talking about a very sophisticated and subtle training where everything has a good reason. So we're talking about causality, We're talking about conditionality, You're talking about dependent origination. These are the conditions that lay the foundation for your liberation. So Ajahn Chah says you cannot separate samadhi from morality. Where there is good virtue there is some samadhi and where there isn't good virtue there isn't samadhi. Nice clear teaching from Ajahn Chah. Doesn't get much clearer than that. And so when we take refuge, Take refuge in the Buddha in his example, We take refuge in the Dhamma. That's this path, This path of keeping the precepts, Training in mindfulness and meditating. Take refuge in Sangha, People who are also practicing, People who have realized the truth that the Buddha realized, Following in their footsteps, Associating with them if we can. And at a point we've been talking about karma, We're talking about using karma. So the Eightfold Path, Keeping the five precepts, Meditating, The Eightfold Path is this set of conditions, It's karmic, It's using karma, It's using the extreme positive end of karma to go beyond karma. But we have to work with karma. So it's also explained as being the raft which gets us across the ocean to the other shore. Once you're on the other shore you don't need to attach to things. It's also explained though that it would be impossible for an Arahant to break the five precepts. Once the mind truly doesn't have delusions anymore, They so completely understand that that is against the laws of nature or sound principles. It's just, They can't do it. They've got so much mindfulness and wisdom, It's not possible to break one of those five precepts. So when we keep those precepts, It's also described that we're keeping the standards of the Aryans. I think that's very beautiful. It's like you're keeping the standard that an enlightened being would keep as an expression of their enlightenment. I think that's also a nice way to think of them. But we have to work with karma. We have to generate as much positive karma as possible. And it's being as generous as we can be, Being as impeccable with the precepts as possible, Meditating as much so that we continue to meet the teachings, So that we continue to have opportunities to practice, So that we continue to be able to listen to the teachings. All of this, The fact that you have these opportunities is generated by your past skillful activities actually. I don't have any doubt about that. That you've all been practicing generosity for lifetimes, You've all been training with precepts, You wouldn't meet with the Buddha's teachings if that wasn't the case. And then if you want to continue to meet these teachings, Well then it's a matter of how wholeheartedly we surrender to this training. And if we do surrender to it wholeheartedly, Then we meet good opportunities on and on. We meet more and more good opportunities. And I can give another little example. Recently I was at my twin brother's wedding. He got married on the beach in Brunswick Heads, Which is where we grew up when I was a little boy. I went to Mullumbimbi Primary School and we hadn't been back there for a while. My parents rented a house by the beach in Brunswick Heads and it was a family get together. First time in 23 years that all six children were in the same place, So it was good to go there. Everyone behaved as well, They were fighting, Which was nice. Then my mum had this idea, She said, Hachalo, I'm going to take you to the Crystal Palace, She said, Which is a place which sells crystals and has a nice garden behind Mullumbimbi. So I had no idea what was going on at the Crystal Palace, But something special was going on. But my mum just had this feeling she was going to take me, So she took me. It turns out when we get there that these tantric monks from the Tibetan tradition called the Guto monks are there and they're making a sand mandala for some long life ceremony and they're inaugurating a stupa. And we arrive five minutes before the ceremony when the high lamas are about to do some special ceremony which is supposed to help pacify obstructions and increase merits. So it's like without any planning, You see, And it can manifest through someone else. Like my mum has a feeling I'm taking Hachalo to the Crystal Palace. Arjuna actually goes to the Crystal Palace and the monks are there and they're doing their ceremony. It's just like arriving in a monastery, But it's not a monastery. It's only temporarily like a monastery. But one can deduce from this, Or I would deduce from this, This is because of my love of Buddhist practice, My love of monks, My love of Samadhi. And I do make aspirational prayers when I pay respects to beings that I think are enlightened. I make wishes, May I never be separated from the care of wise masters, May I always bump into enlightened beings. And then funny enough you make those kind of prayers, Sometimes you do, Sometimes you bump into them. It's really nice when that happens. So refuge is real, Karma is real, And then it can take us to a point where we go beyond karma. So that's when one starts to have liberating insights and you liberate yourself from the self-view. I'm talking about a little further on in the practice. It's nice to know where it goes though. So this is the raft. The raft crosses the ocean, That's the karma, Auspicious karma, Skillful karma, And then Pali called kusala karma. We use that and then the result is once you don't perceive yourself as a self anymore, You stop generating karma in the world, In samsara, And you can't be born into it again. So that's where it leads. But we need some Samadhi, We need to train in insight, We need to contemplate these things, Anicca, Dukkha, Anatta, And then you can liberate yourself from this realm of karma. And then in the story of a lifetime with the Buddha, You've got these great disciples like Mahamoghala, He was beaten up, Beaten to death. So this is an interesting example, The Buddha's equal to the Buddha in psychic power, The most powerful monk, Equal to the Buddha, And he got beaten to death. And he relayed the story of the time when he harmed beings. So it's like, As long as you're in the conditioned realm, And you have a body, And conditions can still ripen, That's the kind of thing that can happen to you. Amgulimala as well, The mass murderer, Which the Buddha had the compassion to teach, He was having pot shards thrown at him, And getting bleeding, And people hated him wherever he went, Even once he was enlightened. And he was lamenting to the Buddha, And the Buddha said, Bear it Bhikkhu, You have done many unskillful things, And were you not to be liberated at the end of this life, You would have been in hell for a long time, So count your blessings basically. But you see that even once, They're not producing karma anymore, But they're still subject to the karma that they made. So this is the important thing about being very careful with the karma that we make. So, Probably said enough? They say it's good karma to encourage people to, I just made some good karma, I hope. And with this karmic effect, Does that mean we have to endure that un-fantasticalness? What you're saying is that if there is a choice, This is the thing, This is the complex web of karma. Like what I was talking about, Like in that situation where I was in the hospital experiencing a lot of pain for one hour, But then there were a lot of very supportive conditions afterwards, So there's a sense of, Sometimes there's a choice isn't there? So it's like we have to pay attention, What are the choices? So you don't have to stay with something that's difficult. You also have loving kindness for yourself and the other person, You don't want to help other people create bad karma as well. So sometimes if you're the object of another person's unskillfulness, Sometimes it's skillful to remove yourself. So they don't make that bad karma. Difficult though isn't it? Life is complex, There's always like certain benefits from certain relationships, Certain drawbacks. Benefits from certain jobs, Certain drawbacks. We just have to make the best choices that we have. But no, You don't have to stay with something which is difficult to resolve your karma. It's okay to look at what your choices are and to make the most skillful choices that you can. In relationships people do get hurt for various reasons, But karma really works if there's intention behind hurting. That's one of the factors. So sometimes there is, I asked Ajahn Anand about this, Sometimes we don't have the intention but there is karma which is made without intention. So if your action, Especially if it's against the precepts, So it's like if one of your actions has a harmful consequence which you didn't intend but you were doing something unethical, There is the karma made from being unethical and the consequences of that. And he said yeah, Karma of unintentional. And this is why we make these, I also dedicate any beings that I've harmed intentionally or unintentionally, May those beings forgive me, Because another thing you hear also, All sorts of illnesses people have, And in Thailand they talk about this a lot, Much less in Buddhism in the West, They say dedicate merit to beings that you've harmed in past lives. The teachers in Thailand say that all the time because the things that we did to beings in past lives are ripening as illnesses, Headaches, Backaches, Pains. They always say this, Don't forget to dedicate merit to beings that you hurt intentionally or unintentionally. Certainly if you intend to hurt you're going to have even worse karmic vipaka, But you do something unskillful you didn't intend to hurt, The fact was in doing something unskillful you made karma. So this is the thing about knowing what is skillful, Knowing what isn't skillful. And it's not easy. Question asked. I think it is. When those two people both consciously forgive and both consciously put something down it means that it's going to be lighter next time you meet in another life or something that's not going to be that thing that was hung on to. So what we do with our mind is very important, It's very important to forgive because otherwise it will come up again in future lives. I've seen a lot of, Heard a lot of stories about this in that sense is if someone hurts you and you decide you're holding a grudge and you decide I'm going to get him back. Well that's using samadhi in a way isn't it? It's making an aritan, But it's negative. It's like one day somehow he's going to pay. You might not see them, But another lifetime comes around. This person comes in your life and you've got that feeling might very well be there. So when two people forgive, Why the slate? Well then it's a blessing in karma and making the relationship in the future more smooth. The Buddha said there are two types of fools in one of his suttas. Those who've done something wrong who do not ask for forgiveness and those who having been asked forgiveness of do not give it. Both those two are fools. So this is the thing, If we do something wrong we should acknowledge fault, We should ask for forgiveness. If that person doesn't give forgiveness it doesn't matter, It means they're a fool. But if someone asks us for forgiveness it is our duty to give it. This is our practice to give that. Ajahn, So someone who's actually taken their life and I'm trying to think about the past karmic. . . You mean talking about suicide? Yes. So in terms of someone who's done that and their next life, I mean in any religion suicide is one of the most things you know about. So in terms of their next birth, What does that mean? I mean of course they'll probably have to pay out that karmic debt or whatever. I just don't understand what that is. Well I mean it is a terrible thing to do and it's worthy of a lot of compassion because this is one of these things about intention and intention. Often people who kill themselves don't want to hurt anybody but the consequence is terrible for how hurt those who are left behind feel. So it's one of those things but it's against the precept. Basically you're taking the life of a living creature. We think we're our bodies but we're not. When you kill yourself you're killing a living being. So it's against the precepts. But obviously people who kill themselves are in enormous emotional pain and it's worthy of a lot of compassion. We don't want to get angry at them for having killed themselves. We want to generate a lot of love and kindness, Dedicate merit, Wish that they be well but basically they do create terrible karmic obstacles. If you kill yourself you make terrible karma. My kind of situation is you want to leave a situation that's bad but for sure the one you go to next is worse. So that's another thing to understand about samsara. No matter how bad it seems it can get worse. Horrible, Horribly enough. So then we have to be very careful. When it seems really really bad we have to get serious about doing good things, Skillful things. But basically probably that person is going to have a shorter lifespan. I would say the immediate consequence is probably a ghost birth. So if the person was, I'd say medically, I mean, Mind wasn't soundly. So I'm just thinking hopefully there will be a bigger effect on the state of mind. It's hard to know the complexity of karma isn't it? But basically I don't think it can ever be good. It's like it's taking a human life. It's taking its body which still has its life force, Has its karma. And the Buddha said it doesn't have very good karmic results. So we have to have a delicate merit. And I think it's just a good, This is the kind of thing that only a monk would say, It's a good lesson in how horrible samsara is really. And just really digest that. It's like look this person was in terrible emotional pain and they did the very worst thing they could do to make everything worse. Okay well that's the kind of place we're living in. That's how confused beings are. This is the kind of thing that people do. I want something better than this. And then we generate that aspiration to be liberated. Because this is the result of delusion. People are confused, They do silly things, Things get worse. But we have to meditate on all of that with a lot of compassion, A lot of forgiveness, Allowing things to be. And this is the result of delusion. When you think you're a self, The more powerful that self view is, The more deluded the things that we will do will be. So thinking of yourself is like okay well I want to be a millionaire, No I don't want to be a millionaire, I want to be a millionaire, No I want to be a billionaire. That's when it's getting in the bhava, Becoming energy. So that just goes on and on and on and on. And on the other hand it's like I'm the worst in the world, I can't stand myself, I'm going to kill myself. And it goes the other way. Or I'm going to go into McDonald's and kill everyone. Seriously, It's coming from the self view isn't it? The self view which is deluded and angry, Or the self view which is deluded and greedy, It gets really really extreme. So the best thing we can do is to listen to teachings on not self contemplate, Not self. And not take our thoughts and feelings so seriously. But whenever someone does that I don't like to come down very judgmental. It's worthy of compassion isn't it? It's a terrible, It's a terrible situation to be in and it's a terrible thing to have done. And all you can do really is try to offer some kindness and love in our attitude to it in all of its horribleness. Dedicate merit, Sometimes just doing something good on behalf of a person just helps doesn't it? The sense of at least I can do that, I can do something good in their name. And then at least we're doing something positive. No easy answers with suicide. Then tell us the difference, If one keeps precepts through wisdom and one keeps precepts through fear of retribution through karma. I say that's wisdom. To keep precepts out of fear of retribution is wise. This is hiriyanottapa, Conscience. The Buddha says two qualities which are the guardians of the world. One of them is intelligent fear of harmful consequences. So that's wise. But keeping it out of faith and keeping it out of wisdom, Yeah, Probably there will be some differences. If you keep it out of faith you're still going to have a happy rebirth but you might not meet wisdom teachings and wise teachers. But if you understand what you're doing and you're contemplating what you're doing you're making more karma with wisdom and wisdom teachings you see. But intelligent fear of consequences is wisdom. In places like Australia sometimes the hellish gets in pistol with two mics. It's a question of what to do. I know. And we're building my monastery out of metal. Seriously, For this reason. Because I don't want to be here. I don't have to face that decision. At Ajahn Chah's monastery once we came infested with a horrible type of ant that was in all of the kutis and the monks and under the trees. It was a particular year where there was just so many of this particular type of ant. And the army came in and said we want to get rid of them. And he allowed it. So we believe he was an arahant. But when it got to the point where the bhikkhus couldn't practice in the monastery, He allowed those soldiers to do what they felt was their duty. But I'm sure it did make karma. But he didn't instruct them to do it. This is the thing about one who's keeping precepts and one who isn't keeping precepts. I'm pretty sure the soldiers weren't keeping the five precepts. But they wanted to serve the sangha. They wanted to do something so the monks could keep practicing. And it's tough. Generally I think insects not having as much merit or accumulated virtue as bigger animals. So it's just consciously if you ever have to make that decision that you just admit the fact that you're making bad karma. Then you'll be conscious of the fact that this is unskillful, I'd prefer not to be doing it. And then we do some things that we work out ways to increase life somewhere else. So that's what they do in Asia. They go to the market and they get some fish from the market and they release them. There's a sense of making some gestures of making up for it. Now westerners often don't like those kind of gestures but they are skillful. If you go to the market where the fish are there, Which are destined to be curry, And you put them in the river, It's good karma. If you go to the place where they've caught them, Especially to sell to people who want to make good karma, Well that's not the same thing because that also happens in Thailand. You've got these temples with buckets of turtles and buckets of fish and buckets of eels and you throw them in the river and they catch them again. Recycling and selling merit. It's not quite the same thing. But I do think, To bet they were doing that weren't they? They were buying cows, Buying horses that were destined for the slaughterhouse and they'd put a ribbon around their neck and then people would know that that animal had been sponsored. Someone made merit through that animal, That one was one you couldn't kill. That's also quite beautiful. Whenever we have to unavoidably do something unskillful then we have to deliberately and consciously do skillful things. Understanding that. One thing is that you can't purify the bad karma but you can increase the amount of merit so that when the difficult things ripen you have support to help you through that. And I had another story of that. Last year I was chanting, Somebody was dying actually in cancer and we were chanting in their home and again in that remote monastery in Ubon. My friend driving the car asked, Does the monastery need anything? We don't have a fridge so I said maybe some ice. So he got the ice and we got back to the monastery and we're getting out of the car and the monk behind shut the door very fast and my finger was in the door. Now what was very interesting was again there's this sense of some bad karma that needed to be resolved but some supportive circumstances. As it happened the finger was in the perfect angle that it was between those two padded squishy bits and not in the metal. And then the ice was right there. So it's like okay the finger, You had to go ouch! And you have to experience the pain but I take it out and it's working and the ice is there. So it's like karma. It's like this is the thing is if we consciously do things which generate merit that when the difficult thing ripens hopefully there'll be more supportive influences there so that the overall suffering is less. Someone here had another question as well. Yeah okay. What did you think of the question? I know it's a complex subject but just your opinion on euthanasia? Yeah, Why did you ask that? Sorry what was it? Euthanasia. Euthanasia. You talk about quality of life. Ask a doctor. You know I personally for myself my parents told me, I can't do it, My parents told me, Ajahn, If I get to that point where I'm in a wheelchair and I can't speak and I'm not eating unless I'm spoon fed, Not only do I not want you to prolong my life I want you to kill me. Well that's what my parents told me. I said well I can't do that because I'm a monk. But it's like what I've also told my friends is if my life needs artificial prolonging that's the point I want to go. Because I think there is a thing, There is a point where a life is being prolonged artificially isn't it? That without the support it would be dying naturally of natural causes. So then I can't instruct people, I'm very strict about rules about that but I think for myself that's what I've said is if I'm in a situation where without the support this body would die then let it die. So it's like, But other people have different ideas about that. Sometimes you need that support for a period of time and you might come through if you're a comatose, Some people do come out of coma but that's something that family obviously have to make. I think the best thing is in your will that one writes how they want that situation dealt with when they're there because once, If you don't have it clear in your will you end up in the hospital, It'll probably fall to the doctors and they'll probably want to keep you alive as long as possible, It's a big bill. So for me that's it, It's like if I can't chew my own food, It's time to go. If I can't breathe without a machine, Just let me have my last breath. So what consequences would it bring to the person who actually gave the great night in such a situation for receiving such a bill? Well you stated your intention didn't you? So this is a typical area, You state your intention that you don't want your life artificially prolonged. So they're just following your bill. So that belongs to the person who wrote the bill? I think so. Then there's this whole thing of like if someone's, If old age is prolonged too long, What's the clarity of the mindfulness in that person as well? And when they die, How confused are they? So this is another thing to consider as well isn't it? It's like what's the quality of the mind? But then it could go really horrible as we're approaching you know 6 billion human beings and counting that if society goes in this direction of at a certain point old people don't have a quality of life and they can choose and there becomes a social pressure that you actually choose, Yeah okay kids no more quality of life, Do me in. It could go in that direction. So you have to be careful that the individual still has a choice and because it costs a lot of money to governments as well doesn't it? So it's like, But this is one individuals have to decide. I think that's elevated due to compassion because if a person is in such a coma state they need to be artificially supported. It creates a lot of hardship on the people supporting the body. So by ending one body you actually remove the pain from the other. But Buddhist practitioners can see it that way but often it's the case that most people are in denial about death and not ready for it and as long as that person can be there in their body and still be breathing they want to hang on to it. So this is why I'm saying is write your will because when people get to that point most people aren't meditating on death, Most people can't accept that their loved one is about to go and so even if you're in a coma they want you in that state for a while while they get used to the idea. So it's because most people just don't think about it. My father had a stroke two years ago and my mother was in a very serious stroke but he did survive. My mum said to me, I think I told you this already, She said to me, I couldn't believe it. I said was it a dream? Was it a movie? I'm like, How old are you? 73? You haven't even thought about death? You're not contemplating the fact that this is going to happen? No, She hadn't thought about the death of her husband who's 75. That's where a lot of people are at unfortunately. So a bit of talk about death, Must be time for lunch. If you're in a situation where you're friends with unskillful people, You feel that you can help them, Where do you draw the line between compassion and assisting those people? Good question. I think the thing to keep an eye on is your own commitment to virtue weakening. Through your association, Are you becoming, The Buddha calls this word Kalyanacana, A lovely being, Someone who loves virtue and who maintains virtue as a lovely being, A beautiful being. So is your own loveliness still intact? And so is your virtue still intact? So the degree that you can maintain, The thing is we are affected by the people we associate with. So it's like, Well, There's associating with them, How much does it affect you? So you help them to the degree that it doesn't harm you. If it starts to harm you, You want to start thinking about healthy boundaries. Obviously it's nice to try to help people.

Reviews

Thank you. How a child suffers from past life Karma is hard to accept when the child is kind and compassionate. It is hard to think them doing negative Karma in a past life to cause such suffering. Thank you for giving me the concept that I need to meditate on.

Interesting and informative talk, thank you! :)

Another wise talk.

You are such a good Teacher 🙇‍♀️ and for that I am so grateful 🌺❤🌹💚

Very interesting talk thank you