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Garrison 8, Compassion for Professionals

Welcome to today’s session. Looking back last night (5:00min.) what we are talking about. We are now talking about karma. As I said yesterday, basically the karma is, I think it’s very much Buddhist. Anybody else talk about karma at all? Hindu, yes. Hindu, Buddhist, they talk about karma? The soldadists (sp?). Thurman said the soldadists.(In fact, karma is part of the beliefs of Sikhism and Jainism.) That’s sort of Sikhist is almost part of Hindu, honestly. Today there are six types of the Sikhist. The concept in the tradition is different. But you know Hindu itself is very non-violence. Maybe this politically incorrect what I’m going to say. What I know may be politically incorrect. The Hindu religion is totally non-violence. There is a section in-non-violence in the Muslim tradition. They always have trouble in Hindu-Muslim issues. The gurus, the ten gurus, have created this Sikh tradition as totally Hindu tradition, and that’s why those gurus don’t carry soul and titles and all those. If you look in the great Hindu traditions you really see that. This is how it was created. Now years go by and it becomes something totally different. That’s my understanding. I maybe wrong, I may be right, but that’s what I read. That’s what I understand, was told by the great earlier Indian masters and scholars. That’s what it was supposed to be anyway. So it’s part of Hindu, therefore they definitely have karma. I think it is very much Eastern. I don’t know.

The true reality I think people accept even in the West, almost. Anybody accepts karma, almost in reality. But it’s not really a part of any tradition. I don’t know, but what I know it was very Buddhist and very Indian tradition idea. According to the Buddha, that is reality, true reality. That makes the individual totally responsible for our deeds. No one can avoid or, what we call it, pass bucks or whatever. You cannot pass to anyone anything. You yourself has to be totally responsible. That is what karma really does. The characteristic of the karma is definite. That’s what we covered yesterday.

Fast growing also we covered yesterday. Fast growing because they give you the example of a tree that growing outside, but it grows so much. The internal ones definitely grow.

I may have to give you a little more explanation on this. If I don’t I may be doing a disservice for you. If I do, I may be doing a disservice for you. But anyway, here it goes. We are all not kids and we are all encouraging, and educated people, so we can make ourselves our own judgement. According to the Buddhist teaching tradition the fast growing (10:00 min.) means whatever good or bad. I don’t think the neutrals have much room to grow. The negatives and positives definitively have room to grow. In case we created one negativity and we have no regret for whatsoever.

Tibetans give you teachings all the time, killing you know these lice. You know they have those little bugs called lice. The old Tibet was not very good at the hygienic. People don’t take baths. People don’t change their clothes, dresses. So we have a lot of those little lice and those little white eggs. A lot of them you find in the old days. I don’t think they have them now. The Chinese have liberated lice, no more of that! I don’t know what else they liberated, but they definitely liberated the lice!

Even though to my surprise, they don’t take a shower every day. Even now. Even in Lhasa. Every family, most of them have nice, nice houses. Many of them don’t have a bathroom. Not at all. That actually was not a requirement or something. It’s funny. Also, those who have a bathroom they have a solar heater, a solar water heater. So much everywhere, even in the villages, there are solar water heaters, very small ones. The family is of eight, nine, ten. So I said how do you take a bath? Oh, we all take baths. Then they looked at me and said nobody takes a bath every week at all. That’s their answer. That answers why how tiny solar water heaters for a family of six or seven, but still there is no lice any more. They are definitely liberated.

Anyway, the example they always give you was the lice because that was what people had to deal with it a lot of times. A lot of people will pick up lice and they just snap in between their two thumbs nails, snap that way. That was the old bad culture. During the teachings always criticize and talk about killing the lice between two thumbnails. The example given here is also killing the lice. The lice is the lice killing. During the summer any living beings that you kill. If one does not have regret of that killing and you let a twenty four hour time go, they say it becomes a double!

Because of the non-regret, time, and fast growing it becomes a double, which means two days of no regret over killing insects will become four, eight, sixteen. By sixteen times it becomes a month. Then by the time when it becomes so powerful, it is almost the same as like killing a human being, that level. The effect on the individual, the negativity. It’s not the negativity of killing a human being. I’m not saying that. The effect of that to the individual (15:00 min.) almost can become like the effect of killing a human being. It doubles, doubles, doubles all the time.

What we need to double, is our green dollars, don’t double that way. What we don’t need to double, our negative karma, doubles that way. So that is what fast growing really means. That’s not only for bad karma either, for good karma as well. If you did something good, it’s not destroyed. We say if you don’t regret and you don’t purify then it grows. We say regret and purify. If you regret and you purify in the evening before you go to bed, even if you don’t purify the killing karma or the killing insects. That we will come later.

But even if you drive a car on a dirt road, you know a dirt road is not in pure land. People love it. It’s wonderful and all that. It’s not a paved road, it’s a dirt road, and it’s great and wonderful but it’s not a pure land either. When you drive the car over a number of insects, they will go for sure. No one can sit there and get all these insects out before I drive the car. No one can do that, right?

But during the earlier time in the Buddha’s period when people are walking, at that time the Buddha emphasized so much, don’t step on insects. Also when you drink the water, don’t get insects killed. Buddha gives the disciples the filters to carry. They have the pail of animal that carries around they can throw the insects in. These are traditionally in those days you can do that. Now today it is absolutely impossible for us to do that, right? You cannot drive, move one wheel and get out and get the insect out, you can’t do that, right? It’s not possible.

What is our solution? Buddha tells us if you are fully interested in the spiritual path, not necessarily Buddhism. Purification in the evening is really a good idea. When you build up your daily practice by yourself you have totake note and before you go to bed I purify all negativities that I accumulated today whether it is knowingly or not knowingly, whatever it is I purify. If you make a note to yourself and you start picking that up as part of your daily chores, that will be good. Just like we say in the morning I am happy to be alive and I’m not going to waste my time especially today, and I may I be helpful to myself or to others, myself as well as others. That would be a very good idea.

When I was a kid I was told all the time, the moment you wake up early in the morning first thing to say was, “May the eye of wisdom be opened, may my practice of both sutra and tantra become completed, and may I be helpful to all living beings.” As a kid from four years I was told to say that. (20:00 min.) I’ve been doing that for a long time, and now I don’t forget. Anyway, that’s what it is. You may not be able to do all of them, but at least you know, happy to be alive today, shall not waste my time today, and may I be helpful. That is the morning.

In the evening negativities accumulated, purify. Those who have a practice also do that. In general that may be a good one. So that every issue of karma, even if it is fast growing, even if it doubled every day, if it’s true. Someone says you do this it doesn’t matter. Some person says it comes from the same source, same place, so it is a solution for us to be able to do that.

That includes, you know not only that. It also depends on the person. Person who does not have any vow or any commitments or anything and who accidentally killing insects and the person who has vows killing insects. Although one act of killing insects, it has different power. The person who has vow who is killing insects has much more negativity than the person who has no vows because vows have advantages and disadvantages. Vows doesn’t necessarily have to be the celibacy vows. Vows like refuge vow, Bodhisattva vows and Vajrayana vows they offer tremendous advantages as well as disadvantage. The disadvantage is those persons with vows when they engage in hurting people or insects or any living beings and not only are committing the negativity of hurting or killing, but also of breaking a commitment of the vow. Because of the vow it has a double, triple, even quadruple advantages and disadvantages both, particularly vow.

Since I mentioned vow here. A person with a vow, if you are doing nothing, you have the benefit of not be engaged in killing, stealing, sexual misconduct, lying, creating schisms, developing hatred and all of those, these are the ten negativities. Simply sitting, lying down, and having fun, relaxing or whatever you like to do and you get all the positive benefit of those vows, of not doing them. All of them. That’s why the vow is so important. Not just because the vow it will help you to maintain and discipline. That is the least important part of it. It is important (25:00min.) but less. The most important part is the vow makes you continuously, constant growing your positive karma. Constant, continuous. Simultaneously, when you engage in negativities it also has double the price, maybe quadruple the price one has to pay. That’s why fast growing means.

Third characteristic one never meets with result from karma one has not created. That is very obvious. You know there was this tsunami period. People who are not living there, people who went for a holiday, just four days, five days, a weekend or holiday just unfortunately happens to be there at that time. People living in that area who just happened to be gone on that day, who were living there, it happens.

It happens even on Nine-eleven, people have business to be, who are not normally working in that tower or nobody who just happened to go there for a visit somebody that day for work or pleasure or something. Persons who normally work there, comes early every morning, something happens to that person, have to go somewhere else and were gone that day. It happens even on Nine-eleven. These are the clear example, if you have the karma you have to meet in there. If one doesn’t have the karma even though that’s your office, you work there every day on some high floor somewhere, even then it happens and you leave the office or something happens and you are not there. These are the examples of one meets with the karma if you have it and one doesn’t meet with the karma when one doesn’t have it.

During the Buddha’s lifetime the earthquake becomes natural disaster things and that’s how Buddha talks and that’s how it works. Indu-Hindu religions talk karma. Do Hindus talk about karma or is karma only Buddhists? Hindus do. That is very Indian tradition then. Can we say that? Okay. We are talking about the karma fast growing here. No, over with fast growing. One doesn’t meet with the karma if one doesn’t create it and one meets with karma if you created, no matter whatever. We just now talking about it. During the Buddha’s lifetime Buddha talks about earth creates natural disaster. Someone happens to be there, someone who are in that (30:00 min.) very house which collapses and who happened to go out or something. So Buddha really put it on the karma of that individual.

That raises another question. That raises another question in our mind. That is what about innocent children who are caught in those disasters, or happened to be caught in the valley or somewhere? Kids who happened to be running around in the street and get shot, had nothing to do with, absolutely innocent and have nothing to do and why? We ask that question.

I don’t know how to answer, but I give you one example. During the Buddha’s lifetime, that was the kingdoms. The kings had everything, had the power over everything, the legislation, the judicial power, administrative power all lies in one person’s hand, that was the king, and court, even jails. So everybody knows an innocent person was put in jail during that period. No matter whoever does what they couldn’t get this guy out. Either the king or one of his ministers very strongly believed that guy did it. Everybody knew it was not true. He might have a German horse or something. He would never listen. So the guy was put in jail. They asked Buddha how come you said everybody’s responsible for their karma. Now look, here the innocent guy is in jail how do you explain that? That is how they asked Buddha. So Buddha said you think he had only this life? Yes he is innocent of the crime he is accused of. Definitely he is innocent, but he has certain karma in this life and that lifetime. He has to pay for this, so this happens and he kept the blame for himself. Then he said if the person who is putting him in that jail, if he does not purify his negative karma, putting the wrong man for the wrong crime, punishing the wrong man for the wrong crime, he will have the same result next time. This is how karma circles.

So even though you don’t have it at this moment, you definitely have it, some karma, some karma for sometime in life. Any consequences that we experience, even wrongly experience, wrongly punished for the crime that you have not committed, but we have it, the karma to experience that. That is the experience, a time like this today five years later of Nine-eleven. Five years, right? Five years later of Nine-eleven and like this, a place like this we can talk about it.

But at the time of that thing, when it is emotionally everybody is so disturbed. At that moment if you say even an innocent person has that karma, that’s not going to be right thing to do because the emotional. Even today some people will be bothered, for sure. But it is a little bit better than at that moment. At that moment if you say even an innocent person can have bad karma, that’s exactly the wrong thing to say. Even if it is true, (35:00 min.) even then, that is the wrong thing to say. That is what we call it unskillful means. Not skillful way, unskillful way. So I keep on saying during that period, one happens to be the wrong time at the wrong place. That is the only thing you can explain. You cannot say anything else that moment.

True reality is all of us have it, and there are people who say, “I’ve been, you know, taking care of myself, I’ve been educating. I don’t eat meat. I don’t eat saturated fat. I’ve been very good, wonderful, this and that, and I have heart attack, how do you explain? How do you explain having karma of getting heart attack?” That’s what happens. “That means I will have bad karma anyway, so I don’t take care of myself.” No. If you don’t take care of yourself, your condition even worsens, even could have been worse. So that’s why you got to take care of yourself. Me myself am couch potato, eating all kinds of, no restrictions whatsoever except sugar. So that’s what I do, but now I am talking to you!

The true knowledge is this: the take care of produces less conditions. When there are no conditions, even if you have the karma, the result cannot materialize because conditions not right. We are dependent arise, absolutely dependent arise. Everything depends on the conditions and the time, as well as terms. Terms, conditions, time. That’s how we exist. That’s how we die. That’s how everything, every single thing is dependent arise. It depends on the terms and conditions. How it does also depends on the terms and conditions. If you have taken care of your physical body well, then there is lesser conditions.

That doesn’t mean you are not going to die short, why not? Nobody ever lives, impermanent. Nobody lived before; nobody will ever live in future; and no one is going to live forever anyway. So it is not before, not in the future, not happening now. Everybody’s going to go no matter wherever, whenever. That can be longer, shorter. You know those are conditions so that’s what happens.

Another story I must tell here. In almost the last year of the Buddha’s life, maybe year before or something. This is not very commonly people talk about it. There was a period when Buddha couldn’t get food, right food, for three months. Some condition happened. Couldn’t get food. You know what happened? People said somebody, I think it was Buddha’s family member or Buddha’s cousin or whatever spread the rumor and said if you give food to the Buddha and his followers, and there was going to be famine in the country. Somebody predicted that. So Buddha anywhere he went for three months they couldn’t get right food, food at all. So what happens is for three months or one of those summer retreats or three month periods and they had to get, one of those business people have left over horse feed. They feed the horse those barley, and things like that, horse food. And that was the only food they could get. So they had to cook by themselves because when they were going out nobody gives any food. So they have to cook by themselves (40:00 min.) for three months that rotten food.

Somebody asked Buddha, you are Buddha and how come you couldn’t get food for three months? So Buddha says I had such and such a lifetime something something happened and I did, what is it holding grain up and down, the barley holding up and down? Not selling at the right time to raise the value, not selling to the right people and that karma I’ve been paying for it. So exactly, even Buddha, I think one of those sutras mentioned, but it is not very commonly talked about it. Is it in Pali or is it in Sanskrit? You never heard it before. You didn’t read it? I suspect it is in Pali text. In Tibetan you don’t know if it came from Pali or Sanskrit. They didn’t say, they said bala which means sutra. If you spend a lot of time digging, probably in Pali. So Buddha didn’t get food for three months. On the other hand, you have magical power. A lot of people have magical this and that, but for sure karma works. Even Buddha did not get food for 3 months, and that also is not early, quite close to Buddha passing away. Maybe a year before, or the year before that or something within last five years of lifetime. Not early time at all. Early time is acceptable, but last time that’s almost not acceptable.

That’s the story. That shows you even at the Buddha level if you have a karma, if you are not purified. This raises all sorts of other questions. How did the Buddha become Buddha without purify all negative karmas? You know, is a big question. We do have a funny answer right or wrong. It is to show us and pretend to be or whatever. Those sort of excuses we use. That is how karma works.

Then the fourth I think it covers almost the same, if you did create negative karma….and I may be spending too much time on the karma, but I need to spend time. You know karma sometimes we skip karma a lot because somehow people have some sort of understanding of karma. We try to hang on this. Basically last night I said the general characteristics of karma. Now specific characteristics of karma, characteristics of specific karma. I think it is important to mention because otherwise we will not know.

Im not going to say too much on this. I’m going to choose one example. Let’s say killing karma. That’s a try to make this killing, I’m sorry some people have difficulty thinking those and listening this because they don’t want to think about it. (45:00 min.) Like take killing karma. Killing karma has four characteristics, four characteristics of the karma. Base on which you created killing karma. That means person to be killed. Or take a life, no can’t do your own life. That won’t work. The person whom you are going to kill is called base. Then you have a thought, motivation, thought first. Without any hesitation, without any hesitation, without any consideration. With powerful anger or hatred. Almost you are enjoying it, and that is the thought motivation you have while you are doing the act. That is the thought described, base, thought. Then you have, oh there is more than this. This negative anger, very angry, and that is the thought occupying the individual person who is doing the action. I’m talking about killing. The opposite of it is the positive karma also of saving a life, the karmic system is exactly the same thing. So that is called the mind thought that is occupied.

Maybe we should leave it at that level because this thought can also be divided. Normally Buddhist teachings, they will divide this thought into four different levels, this thought alone. That may be too specific for these people, at least the people who like to build yourself, basically, so I think I will leave it there. Otherwise there is the causal thought, action, recognition and all of those. Also wrong thoughts too. This is a bad thing. If you keep on thinking I’m going to kill Mr. X and your words, your thoughts and your recognition all keep on saying this is Mr. X I’m killing him, Mr. X. It happens to be Mr. Y, but you are killing Mr. X it becomes weak. The karmic lawyers need to know that if there is time to argue. Karmic lawyers need to know.

I remember when I was not so young, it was 1957 or 1958 and I was eighteen or nineteen. No I can’t imagine (50:00 min.). I must be sixteen or seventeen at that time. One friend of mine, a rimpoche, from Sera and he killed a policeman in Lhasa, he shot a policeman. He shot the policeman. He was going through a certain area and he had a sort of very blunt personality. Blunt person. He was a young handsome guy. The local policeman caught him and tried to rape him. He had a gun and he shot the policeman, or he got the police gun and shot the policeman. He killed the policeman.

Now he’s a monk, he’s a Rimpoche, and he belongs to Sera. So naturally you have committed a crime of killing a human being. They will kick him out of the Monastery for this for sure. This Rimpoche was quite a learned good one and his teaches, he is a debate person, a wonderful person. He started debating the assembly of abbots of the Monastery that he does not have the karma of killing because there is a weakness in this recognition. He just shot a person who raped him rather than sought this particular person with name and face. Therefore there is not strong recognition, therefore there is not a karma of killing, not strong enough. Therefore he doesn’t have a karma of killing a human being. Therefore, he should not be kicked out of the Monastery.

He keep on arguing with something like thirteen volumes of the vinaya rules. He started arguing with the assembly of the abbots. The disciplinary people couldn’t decide so they went to the assembly of the abbots. He is very very good at debate. I remember he consulted me and we went through, searched the books and picked out the quotations, something. First he decided to take a few pages out of the volumes and then decided to take the whole volumes with about 17 people tried to carry to the assembly try to show those abbots, not only the quotes, he quoted page by page. He said all these abbots looked at each other, they had no answer. They couldn’t answer. He was about to win. Then Gebje Rimpoche intervened and said no matter whether karma is complete or not complete you better quit the Monastery. It will destroy the Monastery. It will destroy everything. Anybody, any intelligent person or knowledgeable person can go and argue, but it will set a bad precedent. So please quit. So he quit. He gave up. They argued for three weeks in the assembly of the abbots!

So in the karma you have a lot of loopholes. Very funny. I used to debate a lot because if somebody is hanging washing clothes and hanging shirts outside and somebody comes along to steal one shirt and run away, and it happens they steal two shirts. Do you have two karmas or one karma? So that happens. If you don’t pay the toll tax, do you have the karma stealing or karma of not stealing, and then it depends on the value. You know all this. It’s a very very complicated thing, the karmic thing. (55:00 min.). Let’s not go so much detail on this.

Then the thought. Then thing on within the thought, what I said, anger. However, what you have to remember is within that if it’s negative karma there is negative emotion involved. In the case of this it is hatred, killing and in the case of that Rimpoche who been raped by the local police I don’t think it is hatred. The motivation is I don’t know whatever, obsession or whatever it is. Some kind of negative you know karmic action. That doesn’t mean raped people doesn’t have hatred. Some are purposeful. This one is not purposefully raping that person. This one happened to rape that particular person. The person was going through. Times right, conditions right, nobody’s around and so two or three of them grabbed him and take him somewhere else, and that’s what happens. This is not really a hatred of the person. Could be hatred, you know whatever it is. There is a negative emotion involved. If the negative emotion is not involved, then the karma is not so powerful as it should have been, a weakened power. As I told you the story of the arguing to the point there is no negative karma of killing because the weakness of these four actions, the characteristics of the thought. Saying they tried to argue saying that’s not even a thought at all. When it becomes three and then doesn’t have the fourth one it does not establish it as a karma.

So within that thought there are a lot of divisions, but the most important one can not be discounted. It is the negative emotion as well as the positive emotion and the positive deeds. Positive deeds, take generosity. I’m going to give it and somebody says I feel like it. It is a good project, a good thing. I give it. That is a lesser positive karma than that of I am passionate, I really like it, I’m really excited, I want to support. I want to give it.

That is much more stronger positive karma of giving, than it is routinely it comes out with a group of committees. That is very questionable, even whether that is really generosity or not. It becomes very questionable. A lot of our foundations, both private as well as those foundations do that. There’s nothing. It’s just a project comes up. A group of people will screen it, approve it and they give it. Whether this really has the karma of generosity of giving is really involved in this or not. It’s very questionable.

On the other hand like we get all these appeals, the Red Cross, these organizational appeals, you like it. You know they are doing good and there is excitement. You give money and that has complete positive karma of giving because there is the motivation, there is the recognition, there is the thought of giving. You know it, it is the right thing. You are excited. You want to give it, and that is the right thing to do rather than you are obligated to do it. Or it is the system in place and it went through the system. If it went through the system it will not have that much karma. I really doubt it, whether they have that much generosity or not. At least those who owns them, whether deceased or living (1:00 hour). That is sort of, I didn’t mean to raise that question much.

Then action. Action makes a difference. If you kill. If you are just going to kill, you kill and that’s it. That is better than torture the person, torture, torture, torture the person and finally kill. You know when the cat kills the mouse. When the cat is hungry they just kill the mice. The cat is not hungry and they catch the mice and put them in the corner. Wa, wa, why you do this torturing the poor mice all the time. We see that, right?

That is the action we see, terrible action, and the traditional Tibetan teacher will give you lice, they give you that all the time, lice and bed bugs. Lice and bed bugs. Bed bugs is even better. You go to sleep and suddenly there is a disturbance. Bed bugs eat you up and you wake up a little tender, and you go back to sleep. Oh, two or three times, and soon you get up and turn the light on. Look for the lice. Get in here, see how much you disturbed me. Keep on rubbing and rubbing it. How much you disturbed my sleep, how much disturbed my dream. Keep on Rubbing and rubbing. I don’t know how they do in the West, but Tibetans will put them between their finger nails. Finally, they kill the bed bugs, tiny little blood with red from body comes out. Then say.”Ah, now I can go to sleep!”

That’s perfect strong negative karma. Recognition, looking for, catching, action and finally squeezing the tiny little blood out and then satisfying. Instead of regret, satisfaction. That makes the perfect karma, characteristics of individual karma is the base, correct base, correct thoughts, correct negative emotions, actions, satisfaction. That makes karma complete. Any one of them weakens, karma is less perfect.

Okay? So if you don’t want karma, heavy karma even if you have to engage in certain actions. I’m teaching you bad things. Even if you don’t want perfect karma, try to weaken one of those, especially don’t have action, these things. The cat playing with mice, these things, don’t have that. I don’t mean don’t let your cat do it, you don’t do it. So even the action is less and recognition, a lot of loopholes where you can play in order to avoid negative karma. Buddha himself says, I’m sorry it’s Nagarjuna, not Buddha, said if you knew the system even if you have heavy negativities, you can make it light. If you don’t know anything about the system at all, even if it’s light it becomes heavy. He gave the example of the amount of the same weight of metal. If you make that into sheet, the metal sheet, and throw on the river of water (1:05 min.) doesn’t go down. Its flat and sits on the surface of the water. But if it’s one solid ball, throw in the river or wherever it will zoom down.

That was the example, saying if you knew it you can make a negativity, even if it’s one thing, you can make it lighter. Did you hear me? That is one example I’m giving of individual karmic characteristic, first is killing because killing comes first. Then there are ten non-virtuous actions in the Buddhist tradition. It is almost same as Ten Commandments. I always thought these people must have talked with each other, Buddha and Jesus. They might have had a telephone conference. They decided to do something here in the East that way and here in the West that way. They might have, looks like they might have made some kind of decision together somewhere. I don’t know how. They might have made a decision or maybe it’s just reality. Wherever you look in the East you find the same thing and wherever you look in the West same thing.

That will bring me to characteristics of the karma, the base on which I started talking. What makes the karma heavy? That’s right. Heavy and not heavy. Heavy karmas are powerful karmas, lesser karmas, lighter ones are less powerful, less strong. So we want all negative karmas are less stronger, all positive karmas are good and strong. That is our advantage. How do we know? They say, lot of ways of saying this. From the recognition point of view, the base point of view, from the time point of view, from the personal point of view. From the time point of view, from the personal point of view, from the natural point of view, from the nature of the karma you have the ten negativities: killing, stealing, sexual misconduct, and what is it? Now I’m confused. When you talk about ten negativities I don’t think you talk from the intoxication point of view. Killing, stealing, sexual misconduct, three by body. When you pick up they give you these. When you take bodhisattva vows then you add intoxication. Other than that these three are by the body.

By speech four, lying, creating schism, harsh words. You know harsh words, yelling at the people, screaming, we sometimes consider not so important. It is important, makes a difference, especially base on which you yell. If you yell at (1:10 min.) the weakest. You are yelling at the children or you are yelling at your old parents, or you are yelling at the sick and helpless. They are more negative karmas than yelling at you know each other. Equal level, physically, mentally, emotionally, equal level, you know it is a lighter negative karma than yelling at the old, helpless, which indicates abusing the weakest is worse karma than that of you know, minor. Abusing the weaker is more negative, some people does that, not we, they abuse the retarded people all the time, sexually, emotionally, they abuse the retarded people. You don’t know until the baby is born, the retarded person, things like that. Abusing the dying old person, and scolding them for nothing because you know it disturbs a little bit ourselves, maybe an extra minute or two or five. Then oh your boss is started calling you or you know doing something and you take that on the weaker person, who is helpless and hopeless, and they simply they totally depend on the charity of others. Taking on that is the heavier negative karma than fighting with equal standard people. You know it is not good yelling at each other. It is the wrong thing, it is a terrible thing. But it is worse yelling at and abusing the weak ones who can’t help it. So that makes it more heavier.

Ten negativities. The earlier ones are heavier by nature. Killing is heavier than stealing, like that. That is when it is counted, that is how it goes. Then if you go on in detail a lot of analytical meditation you can do. By creating a schisms is lesser than lying. Why? Doesn’t creating a schism requires lying too, or do we have lying karma as well as creating schism karma? These are the analytical thoughts so that at the end you will know you might have one, two, three, four, five. It’s very similar to the law, our law. When you get in trouble with the law, they will not charge you one, but they will try to bring these because it is all involved. Exactly the same thing in the karmic law. If you created schism. You normally create a schism with a little bit of anger, a little bit of hatred. A little bit of lying here involved in. You know, all of them together. So you are not only going to be charged to be guilty of one. You are going to be charged to be guilty if all those three, four, five. It will become that way. So when there is more it becomes more heavier. And that is the nature whether it is heavy or light.

Then through thought, the thought which is hatred, obsession, (15:00 min.) and ignorance. Basically everything is ignorance whether created directly by or involved. Direct involvement is considered more heavier than indirect influence of those negative emotions.

Action too. Action, no matter how much you hear. I don’t think you hear much in the West, but we heard the other day. It’s just. When a child was killed. Remember that school shooting? If I remember correctly I was stunned to hear one little girl was shot so many times. Talking about action, not one, not two, not three, not four, not five. Seventeen times in one tiny little body. That is the action we are talking about. We are not squeezing here, but that is the action. That makes it much more heavy than simply killing. So this is shocking. What is the reason? Is he crazy? But no matter whatever he said, it doesn’t matter. He is crazy no doubt, but this little girl got killed. Five or six times, and one of them is seventeen. That is called action, worst action.

Sometimes anger does that. We all knew. It happened in Dharamsala once. It was about fifteen years, twenty years ago. Somebody killed a friend who came to visit. Something happening, somehow the anger suddenly these are two good male men friends. One invited the other like a decade or so and they are spending time. They found the friend of his spending time with his wife for a long time. The person thought something going on there. Then probably his friend was watching. Then the wife went to bathroom at night. The other friend also went to the bathroom. The other friend couldn’t help it. He got so angry and stuck a knife through that guy seventeen times again. Seventeen times must be the number. I don’t know why. The guy died. Actually nothing, when he realized he might not be dead. Too late. The guy died.

So you know, the hatred, anger takes over. You have no idea what you are doing. So you really become crazy. You may be able escape the punishment from a court of law by claiming insane, but karmic law you can’t. You became insane because of your negative emotions. Even a little lighter the action of stabbing seventeen times maybe probably half of them not knowing. So the karmic law does not give you excuse in insanity. Then no regret of your action is another which makes it heavier. If you don’t regret what you did. You enjoyed it. You may say I’d do it again, all over again. I’m happy I did it! I’d do it all over again, and that makes it more heavier. We do that in our culture. We say there is no remorse whatsoever. People will know the punishment is not enough or whatever it is. (1:20 min.)

And then this may be dogma, but negative actions created on persons that are important in your life, such as your parents, sick and weak, buddhas, bodhisattvas, teachers and spiritual masters. That is one, then time. You always do it, you do it repeatedly again and again, or just one occasion happens to be. Some negativities we repeatedly do it in a routine without realizing. Like the Chinese restrooms will give you fresh fish standing right in the tanks there when you are doing it. These are repeated negativities, repeated.

Then the person who doing it. The person with vows doing it is much more heavier than the person without vows doing it. These are the light and heaviness of the karma. What I’m trying to do, give it to you, is positive karma and negative karma, and what is the general characteristics of karma. How the general mechanic system of karma works? How the specific karma works? Is there a difference between general and specific? Yes there is. You know four specific is like four, five, six together. Basically you can say four: the base, action, thought, and conclusion. Within the thoughts you can have recognition, causal, and delusion and all of those. That is how specific characteristics of the karma.

This is a funny thing I must tell you, but I shouldn’t tell you too. That is during the Buddha’s time, somebody wanted to kill somebody. I think I did tell you. Accident happened to kill wife. The Buddha went to the extent of saying this guy doesn’t have the killing karma because he does have killing karma, but not strong enough because the recognition is wrong. Maybe insanity may have excuse in karmic law because you thinking of killing somebody else you kill somebody else, your karma is weak. Anyway, then we also talked about heavy and light. That also from the nature of the actions point of view, whom you have committed actions point of view. How many times you have committed actions point of view. Action itself, and all this we did, and the conclusion.

Hah! One thing if you are fighting with someone and keep on fighting, keep on wounding him, if you die before he dies you don’t have a killing karma. Honestly, you don’t have a killing karma because you died before he died, he carries the killing karma of you and you don’t carry the killing karma of him because you died before him. Funny, huh? So that is one thing.

When we come back we will talk about the result. What type of result (1:25:00 min. )does heavy give you? How does light give you result? What type of result? It is not simple I kill you, you kill me. It doesn’t work that way. There are four or five different results and each one of those results we have different effects. So that’s why karma is not so simple as we thought. Cause and effect. I’m sorry I’m a little bit late, six minutes, in taking a break. (break)

Thank you for coming back on time, everybody. Now result. We are talking about the karma. Karma is cause. Making it strong - weak by having those individual characteristics of the karma. That’s such as thought, action, delusion, and conclusion. Now we already talked about all the causal level in general, nothing specific. But the basis in which you make positive, negative causes are sometimes quite difficult to draw the line. Generally we do as I said. Buddha had that conference call with Jesus and all that, and had draw a conclusion of ten points here. One chose to call ten non-virtues and one chose to call Ten Commandments or whatever. So anyway there are ten. This is sort of really positive negative, positive negative, positive negative. Killing is negative. Not killing is positive. Stealing is negative. Not stealing is positive. The other way. So that is basically the general idea: three by body, four by speech, three by mind. Three, three plus four makes ten. So that’s how it works.

Then in addition to that; these are the very very very rough, gross, general points. Accordingly, you make your own. We are all intelligent persons. We make our own decisions. Like you know, like you can expand. Killing is negative karma. Not killing is positive karma. Helping to live more is a positive karma. Helping to have comfort is a positive karma. That is the expansion of it. It is left to the intelligence of ourself. We are not stupid. We can do it. We are not stupid. If we are stupid, we cannot do it. Every time anything new passes. Everything which is not mentioned before by reliable person such as Buddha or Jesus, for that matter anyone. Anything new pops up, we require a new decision. A new decision that has to be made by us. Neither the Buddha (1:30min.), nor Jesus are going to come back and say oh by the way I didn’t want you to do that, and then disappear. They left us. What we do is we make it on the basis of the earlier one. Whatever there we act accordingly.

As a matter of fact, Buddha, just before he died he took his clothes off and told the disciples around him and said look at the body of the Buddha. Just look because it is a very rare time that you will be able to see a body of a Buddha. So he showed his body, and look at the body and you will remember later, that is what Buddha said.

At the same time he said in my lifetime I have explained to you. You have come up and asked me questions. I have explained to you. That is because I am Buddha so I did it. Now I am going to be gone what you should do in the future? He said those things what I said positive, if anything matches with this and does not match with negativities, then it is positive. Go ahead and use it. Count as positive. Which does not match with the positive and which matches well with the negative; it says it matches with the negative and does not match with the positive most probably they are negatives. So you count them as negative. That is how you guide your life. That’s what Buddha left that to us, not necessarily the disciples of the Buddha, but anybody.

We make our own decisions. The basis on which we make our decisions, comparative. Compare it with the positive, compare with the negative. Which ones positive, which one’s negative, where it doesn’t match. This is the basis on which you make decisions. That’s why even though in the ten negativities that counts as not killing. Not killing does not only mean not killing. Means saving. Means helping. Means you know giving a medicine. Helping them to pass a stool. Helping them to live. Taking care of, and driving them. All of those becomes positives under that, as well as not only for life. For education, for you know like people who couldn’t cope with life. Try to help them to cope with life.

Many of those great teachers like Atisha and all of those, the appearance what they showed was they couldn’t cope with life because they was

a prince and the kingdom doesn’t let them go. The beginning of the hippies started at Atisha’s time. Atisha wanted to get out of the kingdom and things, and neither the parents, nor the siblings, nor the country. They never let him go. They sort of holding him. They knew he’s good. He goes to the Lama (?) and says I can’t get out, what to do. He says okay, don’t worry, I’ll find a few people. So they found a few people who had this long dirty filthy hair and beards and dirty clothes and they (1:35 min.) carried dirty old shoes and bowls and all kinds of things. They are going around the city in the middle of the town. They thought our prince have gone crazy with all these people. What they tried to do, they tried to separate them and tried to get Atisha becomes and all this. Still somebody didn’t let him go because Lama went around and told them what to do. Next day take some blood and put on your body and take off all your clothes and started peeing around, and dripping round and going there and do all that. It looks like Atisha couldn’t cope with his life. Then finally, he did cope. Actually, he really coped completely, right? Even today we talk about Atisha.

Anyway, sometime you may have-it’s interesting-you may have within the people some are purposely doing it. Within the people some really couldn’t help it. Also purposely or couldn’t help it. They may have a great opportunity too because our society looks fantastic, but is slightly crazy too. No doubt about it. So these people may have an opportunity. When we serve them we must keep at the back of our mind they may be not only just to cope according to what we consider “cope.” But real truly cope. That we might have to keep in mind, especially tormented people.

When you try to cope with them into their life. What kind of life we want to bring them? We have to make sure we don’t do the same what sometimes we don’t like what our parents want to make us, the way they wanted to. We should not be repeating that. If we do it, we’ll be creating trouble for ourself and for them too. It is extremely important. We must do it. At the same time, what you mean by coping within our mind, you must keep in mind, we don’t want to become the new parents and who want to tell them what to do, what not to do. You know many of the younger kids don’t like their parents because they try to tell you what to do, and they try to make you do exactly what they think is right. That’s the real reason. Otherwise there is not so much truth in it. There is the truth in it. The parents think they are right, and there’s a wrong thing too. So using that wisdom in principle in helping others is very important. That we can bring from our life experience into helping others. Lot to do isn’t it? Lot of opportunity to help ourself too.

My point here is the result. Let’s go to the result, otherwise you won’t work. It’s not one karma, one result, okay? This is important. We in the West have that understanding, all right, I that karma. I have to clear that karma. I did this and let’s clear now. Maybe not. Listen to this, every karma has at least three results. I’m sort of generalizing, but at least three.

One we call it (1:40 min.) direct result. Direct result. Let’s say heavy ten negative-virtuous karma. I’m sorry I have to bring a little dogma in here. Otherwise, I’m not being true to the tradition. If you have a heavy negative karma, ten negative karma, the result of the heavy one is taking rebirth in the hell realm. Medium one is taking rebirth in the hungry ghost realm. Lighter one is taking rebirth in the animal realm. Similarly virtuous works, powerful ones, strong ones taking rebirth as a human being and samsaric god’s of the six realms. Weaker ones, lighter and weaker ones, even though you get human rebirth, samsaric god’s rebirth. Even in human some are rich, some are poor, some have longevity , some have short life, some are sick all the time, some are not sick or healthy and these are the results of those. They are all direct result.

Now the second result, I’m making this short because of the time. The second result, this is more important than the direct result. Direct result: I kill you, you kill me, it’s over. I kill you, you kill me, and I die but I also go to my rebirth. Direct result is I kill you, you kill me, you die, I created negative karma. I go to hell as well as you kill me too. You kill me. I die and you created negative karma. You go to hell and you also have the negative karma of going to get killed by me or by somebody else. So this is the continuation of the samsara, the negative rebirth, uncontrolled rebirth. It’s continuing. Suffering continuing is because of the result of direct. So it’s almost like no end to it. No end to it. That is how it works. That direct result part is over.

Now the heavier, difficult one is called interminable in Tibetan. It means similar causal. Same cause. I mean that’s samsaric which must divide. I’m sorry here I try to avoid all these subdivisions. Here you must divide it into two. One is called experiential same. Same experiencing. The other one is called, same action. I will explain that. Same experience means since we killed some, we cut somebody’s life short, we made the person suffer. We made the person die before before I died. So as a result of this same experience result. Wherever I born in future I will have a short life. I will experience the same thing what I made other person to experience.

Suppose if I am a butcher and I butchered a goat or a sheep and just killed straight, (1:45 min.)it’s fine. But I didn’t kill straight, I make the person suffer. Knife not sharp. I killed, I did something wrong, tried something else, didn’t work well. All of those, and experience of suffering will be next time. I don’t want to say when I was on the table. When I was on the other side and something goes wrong. The instrument doesn’t work. Medicine hasn’t affected. Something accidentally, something happens and you make suffer. That is the experience of suffering. You know now doesn’t happen much, but in earlier times it was very common. Some people gives you the wrong injections, some wrong place. You are crippled for the rest of your life, and all of those are, what we call it, direct experiential result of negative karma. This is bad, bad enough.

But worse than that is the same action result. It becomes addiction to the individual person. You kill someone. So you like to kill. It is an addiction. You like to kill. Some kids always like to be sweet to the insects, animals, cats, rats, and all those. Some kids are obsessed want to torture them no matter how much you told them you can’t do all that they like to kill. Do we notice? We do. Nobody taught. Not the fault of the parents. Not fault of television. Maybe there is violence on the television influencing them tremendously. But what really is the action, which really is addiction, developed addiction of killing.

Addiction of killing. And that goes on. Some people become so much so that we have Jeffrey Dahmer, right? It’s called Jeffrey Dahmer in Wisconsin remember. He cannibalized his wife, and all of those are the same action. This is the addiction result. I’m just calling it addiction. Somehow you are addicted and do the same thing all the time. Repeated the same transaction with or without knowing anything. Some of them dies, some of them hitting animals, insects, kill them. Step on them. All this, get excited because they pop. Hit the insects with a stick because they can. They jump. They enjoy all that. And do all that. This is the action result. This is the worst you kill me, I kill you, go to hell and come back. These are worse than that because these make sure continue. Continue killing work. That’s what it happens. Killing work, continue.

Then the third one is collective ownership. Collective ownership, this is the old Buddha’s time. What Buddha said is when you have a lot of people who are creating negative karma, then your medicines are not helpful. Your things what growing are not helpful. This and that. Now Buddha is talking about environmental problems at that time. They don’t call it environmental problems because your water is getting polluted. Your air is getting polluted. Your trees, all your vegetations are getting polluted. So that medicine that is supposed to have that power, it doesn’t have any more. Doesn’t have the capability of healing people (1:50 min.) because of the pollution the purity is going down. Not only that. There will be more natural disasters, other than normal. There is global warming is another big one over here. These are the results. I’m trying to shift the focus from industries’ pollution into negative karma. I’m just joking. I’m not, but these are called ownership result.

So it is the collective which affects to the countries, to the places. There is more water where you don’t need it. There is more dry famine, no rain, dry famine, drought. There is more drought where you needed water and there is more flood where you don’t need it. Rain, and all of those are the collective karmic result. So blame the war for Katrina, honestly, from that point of view. Also from a spiritual point of view, it is not those extremist Muslim gods getting angry and punishing us. It’s not. I’m quite sure they interpret in that way within themselves. I’m quite sure. Katrina and all those things. These are the collective karmic result of ownership, the third result. Commonly we experience these are the environmental problems that we face.

Even 2,600 years ago. Medicines become weaker, it doesn’t work. Those are the problem medicines of those days, the problem medicines. Animals become weak. The suffering of the animals is one eats other. By doing so it balances certain environmental things, and that doesn’t work. It’s lopsided. Certain animals got completely doesn’t even exist, insects, animals, all of them. All of those are what is called the third result: environment, global warming, Katrina. All of those.

Nine-Eleven might not be the third result. Nine-Eleven must have been the direct experiential thing. Sometimes we wonder how can educated people by so stupid. Like Nine-Eleven those pilots who died. Educated person, how can they be so stupid? It’s not, it’s the same action result coming up for them. So happy to do it for a happy cause . That is what we call brain washed. Brain washed or not brain washed, this is the second, same cause result. The experience of some action. So both of them taking over the individual thoughts, the mind, the ideas completely. Not only they did it. They did it happily. They enjoyed doing it, and they are willing to sacrifice their lives. All this because of this second action, this second direct result.

These happens both positive and negative causes. Those of us who are caretakers, who are helping, not abusing (1:55min.) the helpless ones also have the same result achieved. Same result achieved.

Okay, so got to stop here. We got two more sessions. There will be questions tonight. Then we will have a little more time to talk about it. Then we have tomorrow to round up. Then bring to the compassion. Compassion as motivation and action as creating of positive karma and result what we get by giving help and service to the others. That’s what I’d like to conclude tomorrow in that way. See how it’s going to work. So I guess that’s what it is.

We have David, another wonderful person, being with me for decades again, and even before me in the Buddhist practice. Right? Anyway that’s it. David’s going to do today’s meditation. If you have during the contemplative, meditative stage, think about it and any questions put it in. We’ll have a little more time to talk about it. I better get out of it. Thank you.