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20070306GRAA4NT2Truth

Welcome tonight. There are a lot of people here tonight, considering the weather. So before I do anything I would like to say please drive carefully when you’re going back, those who have come from a distance, particularly. I was not aware of that bad weather today, so it was a little surprise for me when coming out. But apparently they’ve been saying that since this morning, they’ve been announcing that. I did not know. Nor our program people knew, either. They’ve all been busy. Otherwise, we don’t normally meet if the weather conditions are difficult.

We have been talking about Buddha’s teaching of the Four Noble Truths, the Truth of Suffering, on which we spent quite some time, and the Truth of the Cause of Suffering, on which we also spent maybe two or three sessions already. Maybe today’s the third time talking about the cause of suffering. Then our original idea was to continue with the Third and Fourth Noble Truths, the Cessation of Suffering and the Path to the Cessation. The advertised program goes all the way to April, right? I think we may go into April with one session. So we will try to make today the last talk for the cause of suffering, and next Tuesday we’ll talk about the cessation of suffering. I don’t want to linger with the Four Noble Truths right into the next segment of topics, because we are due to begin with another subject: mind and mental faculties, although that is a very basic subject. So again, today will be the last talk on the cause of suffering. Next we will talk about the cessation of suffering.

There are quite a number of new people here today. Basically, what I would like to say is this. Buddha’s teaching is found in Theravadan teachings, Zen teachings, Mahayana teaching or Vajrayana teaching. All these teachings may look like totally different types of things, particularly the way and how the people that practice them wear their dresses -the color, style and all this. But the bottom line is, not matter whatever tradition you are looking at, Mahayana, Vajrayana, Theravadan, Zen, the basic fundamental principle is the Four Noble Truths.

There’s no change in that truth of suffering. That is the reality in our life. I repeated it a number of times. Although officially I’m supposed to tell you there are three kinds of suffering, eight kinds of suffering, or hundred kinds of different sufferings, that’s not the major point. The point is, what do we experience, what do we go through, how are we, how do we deal with our life, and what is all this about? And there’s a lot of it. The reality is, in life, what we experience is really the truth of suffering. I’ve talked so many days I don’t want to revisit it.

So everything, whatever we experience, is suffering, even the joys we’re experiencing. Some of them give you a little pleasure here and there, but in reality they create suffering. It has pain, it is part of pain. We always experience that. That is the truth, the truth of suffering. Sometimes when I say the little joy we experience is suffering, we may begin to think, “What do you mean?” Truly speaking, the little joy that we experience brings a lot of suffering. There is no question. That goes for everything, even companionship. It looks great, joyful and wonderful, but it brings a lot of baggage along with it, which is not very mysterious for us. We know that very well.

More generally speaking, a little feeling of coolness is a relief. However, it brings suffering. It creates more suffering. So even the joy that we experience a little bit here and there, has suffering nature and the capability of creating suffering. Therefore, for Buddha, it is not joy. The true joy, true happiness, is the joy that has never known suffering, which we have not experienced. So we don’t know yet.

Where does all this suffering come from? Is it created by a creator? Is it created by me? What is it? Where does it come from? Or is it because you’re born that you have to suffer? Is that the case, or what is it? So that is the question we raise for moving from the suffering into cause of suffering. The answer that Buddha is giving here is two things. Yes, every good and bad, whatever we experience, everything is karma. And it is karmic consequences, or karmic joy result. Good, bad, everything is karma. There is no doubt about it. It is true, unless we as individual or collectively, engage in certain actions, we will never experience that result. Consequences or whatever, good or bad, whatever it is, we will not experience those consequences without indulging in any action.

Karma is not mysterious. In one way, it is extremely difficult to understand karma, but on the other hand karma is also nothing but cause and result. When we created a cause, we will have a result. When we do not create a cause, we will never have the result, no matter whatever we do. And that is what cause and effect is all about. Every action that we take, everything, every daily chore, whatever special chore, special work, whatever we do, including walking, sitting, sleeping, all of those are action. All of those are creating karma. And this is very funny, but the reality is, everything we do, think, talk, walk, sit or stand, every moment is creating karma for us. That is according to Buddha. I have no proof for that. Honestly, but it is true. Not because Buddha said so but because when you look at the consequences you will begin to see, it is the reality.

What we do, how we act, what we don’t do, all makes an impact. We do things without any consciousness, without any awareness. We do a lot of things with awareness. Awareness or not awareness, we do nothing without thought. With every action that we take, a thought has gone before that. If you want to get up, a thought comes in, “I should get up.” If you want to go to the bathroom, first the thought comes in, “Oh, I have to go to the bathroom.” If I have to hit somebody, the thought will come up before, “I have to hit, I have to hit, and I’m going to hit.” And if you are going to be nice to somebody, the thought comes up, “I have to be nice, I have to be nice.” If you have to eat something, the thought comes up, “I have to eat” and then you eat. If you drink, you have a thought come up, “I have to drink.” Sleep, the thought comes up. Walk, the thought comes up.

So every action, physical, mental, emotional, all of them are follow thought. That very thought which makes the individual act, will define whether the action you’re going to take is going to be a positive or negative or neutral. Right? That is thought.

So the action we take, positive or negative, comes because of the thought, the action-provoking thought. If that thought is one of kindness, compassion, or something, then unless by nature the act is negative, other than that, more or less, every action we take becomes positive. If the thought is hatred, or anger, or obsession, or jealousy, or something, more or less, almost every action which follows thereafter will become negative. The nature of the action will also make a difference, but also the thought that brings the action makes a difference. We call that motivation.

So the motivation will shape events tremendously, it will have a very strong influence on whether the action you are going to take will be a positive karma or negative karma or even neutral. Some great teachers have said repeatedly, “It is nothing but the mind, nothing but the mind. Every action follows mind. Every phenomenon follows from mind. Mind is therefore most important.” All these statements are because of that reason.

It is up to us to make our own judgment, whether our actions are going to be positive or negative. We are so used to negative action, because we are so much addicted to negative actions. That is not because we are addicted, but in a way there’s a funny karma. The funny karma is, if you kill someone, you will get a couple of results.

First there is a direct karmic result. If you kill somebody you create this killing karma, and as a direct result of that you will lose your life. Somehow or another, one time or another, this is what happens. That is the direct consequence. Then there is the indirect consequence. That will create a lot of other things, even though you have a respectable life, but it is shortened. It is interrupted and it has more illnesses, and more problems.

If you think these are bad, they are not the worst. I kill, I lose my life, I pay for it, and that is sort of a direct, straightforward deal. But then there is something which is not straightforward, and that is what they call “jyap ah gyu du.” This means that you always like to repeat the action you have carried out. And that is really the addiction. It is always there.

What does this addiction do? I am giving you the example of one killing karma. The addiction of that makes the individual like to kill again. The kids we see are just innocent little children, just playing around, doing nothing but playing around. Some of them like to help insects or animals or little cats or dogs. And some of them would like to hit them, or in case of little insects, step on them, or kill them, or chase them with sticks, or even chase them with little fire. Where does that come from? That is this particular karmic result of picking up the addiction again. One likes to kill.

It works very similarly with attachment and also with jealousy. Buddha said that this is the worst result of karma. You simply happen to be killing somebody, for which you pay with your life. You die once, that’s fine. It’s a direct deal. Give and take. A bad way of saying “An eye for an eye.” (laughs) That’s straight forward. But this addiction of loving to kill, liking to kill, is what creates constant, continual karma.

When you look at two brothers or two sisters, or even two twins you will see the different character they have. And this is not coming from the father. That is not a fault of the father. It is not the fault of the mother. There’s no fault of the nanny, if you have one. Nor is it the fault of schoolteachers. It is simply an addiction that the individual has. And that is exactly what he or she is showing. So that’s called karma.

So when we say “cause of suffering” it is the karmic cause. Karma also just doesn’t happen. Every karma we create follows from thoughts. Those thoughts are emotions. Whether it is hatred, obsession, faith, trust, belief, good or bad, whatever it is, that influences the individual to do something. Whatever thought comes makes you act. Physical, mental, emotional actions, all makes the karma.

Whether such an action is complete or not complete, that is a different story. I should give you an example. All killing karmas are bad. But in order to qualify to be a perfect killing karma, what do you need? You need a number of things. First, the motivation. Either it will be hatred or anger. Or it will be hatred mixed with jealousy, or jealousy mixed with obsession. Or ego, a self-serving ego controlling issue. It will be one of those negative emotions, which will be the motivation.

If there is no motivation whatsoever and somebody just hits something, and somebody falls and dies, we call that ‘accident’. We don’t call it murder, we call it an accident. Even in normal human society, under normal rules, it will be called accident. Accident is accident. Yes, you killed. You have a karma of killing. However, it is not a complete killing karma because you don’t have a motive. There’s no motivation. So it’s not perfect killing karma.

Then comes the action, in this case the action of killing. That also depends. Some actions are very rude, terrible, like torturing the individual and doing all kinds of things. And you not only know that you are killing the person, but you kill by torturing the person, giving tremendous pain to them, just to pursue something of personal interest. I can’t help thinking about the actions that we have taken in Iraq and in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and all this torturing. And this is the worst action. In true life, that really makes a terrible, strong killing karma. It is not just killing, but making the individual suffer as much as possible, doing whatever hurts them most. And that’s the worst action. That makes the killing karma much stronger than simply shooting somebody.

In war you just shoot and somebody gets killed. What is worse is capturing the person and torturing them as much as you can in order to extract information or whatever it may be. Whatever the purpose may be, you know, the ends could never justify means. And when we try to justify the means for the end result that’s where we go wrong. That’s where people go wrong. We think the end is justifiable, you know? We need to get the information because we don’t we want them to attack us. So unless we torture them, they won’t tell us. It’s justifiable in one way, but from the karmic point of view it’s not. It’s making much more stronger and powerful killing karma.

I must also give you an example on this. Traditional Tibetan teachers in Tibetan Buddhism give you examples. This one is a funny example. Maybe the Tibetans do torture people, too. It’s not that every Tibetan is innocent and great. People like to romanticize the Tibetans. Not true! However, the example given here in teachings will not give you examples of torturing because that’s not common, it’s very little.

So the example what they give you is the bedbugs. These little red bugs come in bed and eat you at night, when you sleep. This is normal. The everyday teachings will give that example. You are nicely falling asleep and then this little bug comes and bite yous, you know? So you get irritated and scratch a little bit and go back to sleep. And the moment you begin to fall asleep, they get you again. And you get more irritated. You repeat that a couple of times and at the end you say “I’m going to get you!!” You get up and get a flashlight and go and search for that bedbug. And then finally, you’re going to find it because it’s a little red bug on a white bed sheet on a white bed. It’s very easy to find it, right?

So you catch the person….not the person, the bug!! (laughter) Well, in a way it’s a person, you know? Not a human being, but a living being. And then you say, “Now, look at you, you have become big, fat by drinking my blood. Now here you are.” And you’re going to keep it in between your fingers and rub it. You are not going to kill it. You’re just going to keep on rubbing it as much as you want until you’re satisfied. You’re going to rub and torture it and let it go a little bit and catch it again. And finally, you put that little bug in between these two thumb nails and squeeze it. And when you squeeze it, a little drop of blood comes from its body. And then you say, “Ah, now I am fully satisfied.”

So that’s the example for a full negative karma. Why? Because you have the motivation of first being irritated, then became angry, then tortured the bug and then finally felt satisfaction. And that is considered a perfect karma of motivation, action, including the final killing, and finally the satisfaction. When you look back, you think “I did it.” And that makes the karma strong. So this is the example.

This goes for positive or negative karma, both. For example, as for the motivation, a positive one is faith. Or maybe you have good compassion. Then there is the action. If you have compassion you are willing to take hardship, difficulties. You want to help that person. The person is giving you a twisted answer or they don’t listen to you. You are trying to tell a young teenager, “Don’t do this,” and they won’t listen. They want to do it. The more you tell them not to do it, the more they want to do it. So then you begin to get irritated, and nervous, and afraid. You begin to think, “Oh, this little kid is going to have a terrible life. He’s going to be a bad person.” And then your fear will be exaggerated more. You think this little guy is going to land in jail. At the same time, while taking hardship you never lose the compassion or love.

That really happens to so many parents. They never lose their love for the children, but the children will never listen. Children always think, “I know better than that.” Think about yourself at age seventeen or eighteen. Remember how you used to think and what your parents used to tell you, and how you liked to cheat them, how you liked to find a way they could not discover. You know all this. I just saw an ad on the television two days ago, where a young little boy likes to steal the drug that his grandmother is using. So the boy is very sweet to the grandmother and tries to give her medicine. And while she is taking the medicine he pulls out a little amount and puts the drug in the pocket. So bottle is not completely empty and he puts it back.

So we did that. We look at our parents and think they’re just making trouble for me and just tell me to do this and not to do that. And when you become parents, and you start looking at your kids, the same thing repeats, right? It’s nothing new. They’re not doing anything new that we did not do. Honestly. The main thing is not to lose your love, affection, and care, even you are taking the hardship of helping that crazy sixteen or eighteen or nineteen or twenty year old, that wild crazy horse who would like to go to bed at five in the morning and get up three in the afternoon or something like that. And if you take that hardship and try to continuously help that person, the action is very difficult, very hard, but it’s very strong, good karma.

Finally, if you are able to help that kid, then you are happy that you could get through, that you could help him or her a little bit, and that is wonderful. He or she turns out to be good person. So you satisfied fully, joyful. And that is a very good conclusion. So it becomes perfect, good karma.

It’s not easy to create perfect, good karma because we break in between. We have good motivation, we take action. The action becomes difficult. We say, “Yeah, I’m trying my best and they won’t help me with it. All right!” So then you go on and use the F word and say, ‘What’s the use, who do I care? Do whatever you want to, you’re grown up. If you’re going to land in jail you are the one landing in there, not me. So get out of here” and you kick them out and do all that. And these are the breaking points in between your compassion.

In order to help a kid sometimes you decide to ground them, to give some consequences, take away some privileges, you know. Actions like this are justifiable because of the motivation. If you’re going to hit the kids, I’m not sure if that’s justifiable or not, probably not because it creates pain.

I’m told that a number of times I was hit terribly as a kid. I used to get lashes all the time. I must have been a very naughty boy, you know? So that’s what happens. That’s when the action is crossing over from just giving consequences to a step beyond, hitting. Yes, even the action of grounding will create pain. But that is a different pain than when you are trying to lash the kid with your belt. It’s different. That is where you are crossing the boundary. You are creating terrible pain. But the Tibetans used to beat the kids all the time. They try to justify that because apparently there is no anger or hatred involved for whatsoever, but that is questionable. So you really have to recognize a line that you can go up to. And when you cross it, anything you do that hurts the person, by virtue of the act, becomes negative.

Anything you do to help, by virtue of the action, becomes positive. Even here though there are a lot of gray areas. If you try to feed an addicted person alcohol, is it helping or hurting? When you have a debate or discussion, this would be a subject for you to debate amongst yourselves. We have those evening debates on a Friday once a month. And that’s where you should bring up these points.

Giving an addicted person an addictive substance is hurting the person, although the person may feel it’s great. But in reality it contributes to hurt the person, so it’s not right. On the other hand, if the person has terrible withdrawal symptoms and you still insist on not giving them anything they may die. So then giving them a drug will again become a positive action.

We are not stupid. We have that beautiful, intelligent mind. We have to use that mind, and make the best choice. We will have a lot of problems adjusting. You people should discuss among yourselves and form your opinions and challenge each other on these points. When you have debated it out you will know clearly that this is right and this is wrong. Otherwise, it is extremely difficult to say what’s right and wrong

I always use this example: what’s right for the Chinese is wrong for the Tibetans. What’s right for the Tibetans is wrong for the Chinese. It happens. So what is really right and what is really wrong is a big question. If you talk about it, read about it and discuss and debate, each and every action of the individual can be discussed. You don’t have to tell, “I did this. Is this right or wrong?” No! You say, “If someone does this and that, is this right action or wrong action?” This is what the sangha is all about. The sangha discusses that and forms opinion and some people will contradict the opinion. Some people will agree with it. And then you can see how far your logical power can lead you.

You can meditate, even. And then whatever the right conclusion you draw, that is what you will meditate on. And it becomes a part of you. That is how you go for the practice. Other than that, just simply sitting down alone is a good thing, because you people went and had a GOM meditation this weekend, and I heard that you did great. I’m very happy about it. But also the subject what you think about it, it has to be… I’m sure it’s different to all the different people. They have different subjects to think about, subjects or objects.

But whatever you are going to meditate on has to be correct. If it is correct or not will be decided by your intelligent mind and your information through reading. Pour your information in and discuss it. That’s why we have introduced this discussion evening. It is like homework. When you hear me talking or the instructors talking, that’s one thing. When you are using your mind, analyzing and debating, that is another thing. And then finally you are meditating, like what is happening on the GOM weekends now. Or else, there are opportunities for meditate for three hours, two hours, one hour, and half a day. Whatever you have analyzed and what has come out of it, that’s what you meditate on. That is how you make your practice perfect. Other than that, if you just sit down and do nothing, it is not that great. Even the cows will know how to sit down. If you say, “Keep silence!” they may say, “Brrrrrr”. Other than that, they will keep silent.

So this is how it works. This is the cause of suffering, the karmic cause. This is what makes the karma. You know now what makes a powerful karma, and what makes a weak karma. So you have motivation, action, conclusion. If all three are strong, it makes a strong karma. If one is missing, it becomes weaker. If two are missing, it is even weaker. Let’s say accidentally you hit somebody. That person accidentally died. We have no motivation. The moment you see that person is falling down or dead, you regret it tremendously, rather than “Hey, I did it.” If you regret it doesn’t have…. It only has the action of killing, but not two. So it becomes even weaker.

That’s how you can see whether a particular deed is good for me or bad for me. That is how you have to form your opinion. That’s how you have to judge. You all are grown up, educated, intelligent, wonderful people. You’re not just twelve years old, or even two, three, five year old kids who have to be told, “Now sit down. Now stand up. Now sit down.” That’s what we don’t have to do. Although a lot of American Buddhist centers do that. They treat you like little babies. Babies are fine, but they treat you like little infants or something. That’s not right.

So I better conclude. I don’t want to let it be late because I don’t know what the weather’s going to be. So I will be concluding the cause of suffering as karma. Karma is accumulated according to the motivation, or the motive. And it makes a huge difference whether that is negative or positive. Then action makes a difference. Completion makes a difference. Everything is result of karma. Every action that we take creates karma. There is no big karma making factory. You don’t have to go there. Everywhere, when you sit, think, sleep, sit on the throne, whatever you’re doing, every time you’re creating karma. Even if you’re sitting the wrong way on your throne you’re creating karma, too. So honestly, this is how it works.

So when you begin to look into the karma, it is so subtle and so gross at the same time. And it’s very, very hard to understand. However, generally, good and bad is based on whether you’re hurting or helping somebody. The helping always brings us good result. Buddha repeatedly said that by helping others you can help yourself. And the way to hurt yourself is by hurting others. Buddha didn’t say that, I’m saying it. The way to hurt yourself is by hurting others. If I hurt you I hurt myself. As a consequence of creating negative karma, I get hurt. That’s really how it works.

Anyway, among karma there is positive karma, negative karma, and there is something called immovable karma. Immovable karmas are normally part of positive karma. However, the individuals are not able to get out of cyclic existence. They are simply creating good karma to take a good rebirth within what the Buddha called samsara. I am talking about birth after death. And that is called immovable karma. Though it is good, it does not really give you a karma to free yourself from suffering completely. It doesn’t bring nirvana to you. It does not bring total enlightenment. And these are called immovable karmas. It’s part of positive karma, but it doesn’t go for the purpose of total enlightenment, or freedom from samsara.

And that’s why, whenever we begin to do something, we generate the bodhimind meditation on compassion. Compassion makes sure that every good work we do becomes a cause for enlightenment, or at least for nirvana. So with the influence of compassion anything you do blocks the karma from not becoming immovable, but truly positive.

Sometimes we should have a course on karma in Jewel Heart. There are lots of transcripts available on karma. Karma is part of lam rim, part of the Three Principles, part of everything. In every teaching that you have received here there’s tremendous information on karma. Somehow you have to know basically what karma is. I don’t want you to be expert, but know a little bit. What is karma all about? What is the characteristic of karma? What makes it qualified to be karma? You have to know a little bit about all these things.

And that is how you conduct your life. It is not just about how to meditate, but how you think in everyday in life, within your own home or out in the market, or out at work, how you function, how you do everything in your life. If you know the karmic thing, you know exactly what to do, what not to do. This is the shorter way of explaining. The more details you know the better it is for you. Karma is so important. It is controlling our life. We create it. Nobody else created it. I created all my karma. My karma controls me now. So does yours.

But I create it. Since it’s my creation, I can change it. Can I change it? Not immediately. Some people will say, “I gave you birth, I have the right to take your life away.” That doesn’t work that way in karma. I create it, but now karma controls. So you have to wait until it changes. So you have to know. That’s called karma is definite, fast growing. One never meets the result if one does not create the cause. If one creates the cause, no matter how much time, whatever it may take, but the result will be bound to be given. These are basically the characteristic of karma.

Knowing that and then conducting your life in this principle is the best way to help yourself. That’s what Buddha said, that’s what all the Buddhist people do. Not only Buddhist people, all good people do that. Whether you are Buddhist or not Buddhist is almost the same for everyone. Whether you give this a name or not, does not make the difference. Good Christians do this. Good Jews do that, good Hindus do that. And good Muslims, I hope, are doing that. So that’s basically what the cause of suffering is all about.

So next Tuesday I will be here. We’ll talk to you. If there’s no cause of suffering, what happens? Okay, I’m going to cut here. I’m not going to give you an opportunity to ask, to raise questions. I don’t want to be late.

Good night

4/3/2007

©2007 Ngawang Gehlek, All Rights Reserved