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KARMA
http://www.berzinarchives.com/sutra/sutra_level_2/mechanism_karma_1.html
The whole text about karma I think is very good and was obtained on
a site of a female Rinpoche(highly realised Tibetan Lama) called Venerable
Khandro Rinpoche. http://www.vkr.org/biography.cfm She teaches in America and has a nunnery/retreat centre in India.
On her homepage is Ven Khandro Rinpoche's teaching schedule for this year.
http://www.vkr.org/schedule.cfm An excerpt of her book http://www.vkr.org/book/book.cfm which contains a section about Karma is
below
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THE LAW OF KARMA
by
Ven Khandro Rinpoche (Female highly realised Lama)http://www.vkr.org/
Buddhism is a nontheistic
philosophy. We do not believe in a creator but in the causes and
conditions that create certain circumstances that then come to fruition.
This is called "karma." It has nothing to do with judgment; there is no
one keeping track of our karma and sending us up above or down below.
Karma is simply the wholeness of a cause, or first action, and its effect,
or fruition, which then becomes another cause. In fact, one karmic cause
can have many fruitions, all of which can cause thousands more creations.
Just as a handful of seed can ripen into a field full of grain, a small
amount of karma can generate limitless effects.
Every conditioned
phenomenon, human beings, the environment, and so on, is the effect of
individual or collective karma manifesting in completely diverse ways. For
example we can talk about "first karma," the reverberation of one karma
striking, or coming togeher with, another. One karmic moment can
immediately split into the ten directions and three times, and each of
those ten directions can again explode into ten more directions. The
expansion and multiplicity of karma is said to be like a billion universes
colliding with another billion universes. This is the fruition aspect of
Karma, which we will talk about in more detail below.
So karma does
not just refer to big blocks of anger, ignorance, or negative emotions; it
can be subtle. A flicker of movement, a simple nod of the head to indicate
a feeling, a subtle movement of the eyes can establish karmic cause and
eventual fruition. The textures of our sense perceptions, sights, sounds,
smells, touch, feelings and thoughts, create hundreds of karmic causes at
every moment. The moment we shift from our fundamental ground, we create a
karmic cause that produces some effect, for better or
worse.
Contemplate
Our entanglement with sensory display
leads to actions that create karma. Reflect on the fact that, in this
precious and pure moment, all attachment and aggression could completely
disintegrate; nevertheless we detour again and again into the display of
the senses. The samsaric cycle continues, and all our hard work becomes
meaningless and lacking in benefit or fruition. Suffering is meeting every
fresh moment absolutely capable of transforming it and not taking the
opportunity to do so. What could be sadder than that?
Karma can be
intentional or unintentional. The actions we're aware of and those we're
not aware of, which are most of our actions, produce karmic effects for
our selves and others. To understand how this works, we need to watch
ourselves in action and to understand our potential for immensely diverse
karmic production, good and bad.
We can also talk about collective
karma. The karma of many sentient beings bringing a lack of awareness to
their actions can lead to the collective fruition of war, famine, and
diseases that are experienced by everyone. All the pain and suffering in
samsara are the result of individual or collective karmic
creation.
As individuals or groups, on a tribal or national level
or just samsara itself, we are all creating karma and being affected by
the karma created by others. Similarly, the others are creating karma and
being affected by the karma we create. There is always this interchange of
karma. At the same time, karma can be changed; karma is exhaustible and
karma is impermanent.
Creating Good and Bad Karma
The simplest
way to understand good and bad karma is this: virtuous actions produce
virtuous results and negative actions produce negative results. Good karma
produces a good fruition such as happiness, and bad karma comes to
fruition as suffering.
The fundamental discipline of Buddhism is to
abandon unvirtuous actions and cultivate virtuous action. To know which
actions to abandon, we need to know what unvirtuous actions are. In
general, they are any actions arising out of non-awareness and
selfishness. In particular, they are actions contaminated by the three
root poisons: aggression, attachment, and ignorance, which together with
jealousy and hatred these are known as the "five root poisons." When any
of these root poisons creep into the actions of our body, speech, and
mind, whether we're aware of it or not" those actions are
unvirtuous.
When we see how much pain and suffering our
self-clinging causes, we may feel a sense of guilt, regret, or blame. It's
important to look at this carefully. To truly understand karma, the words
guilt, regret, and blame aren't necessary; we need only know its cause.
The root cause of karma is ignorance, which was not our intention. If we
intended to be ignorant and generate suffering, there might be something
to blame or regret. But exactly whom are we going to burn at the stake?
That's something to contemplate! We have to understand the totality of
samsara. We can talk about how it all comes down to ignorance and
self-grasping with all its habitual tendencies, but what good comes from
this unfortunate point? The real point is to appreciate our inherent
awareness and develop our human
potential.
Contemplate
Awareness is the ground of good
karma and the fruition of happiness. Seeing your negative tendencies and
ignorance should only cause you to strengthen that positive ground. Your
good human qualities so far outweigh and are so far superior to any
negative circumstances. There is also the tremendous potential inherent in
external circumstances. Given this positive ground, you could completely
liberate all confusion and ignorance this very moment. This is the
essential way for a meditator to train the mind.
Death, Emptiness and the "I"
that does not exist.
Dear Friends,
This thread about death lead me
to write a long spiel lol. Please persist :) I think it has a point lol
well i hope so. :)
To comptemplate one's own death is such a good
thing to do on a daily basis. Death is the great equalizer :) Thinking of
our own death each day can really make us think about the identity that we
hold on to and the body we have nutured so much in this life and how it
will come to an end. One day "I" as I know it will cease to exist. The non
existence of the "I", the person I know as "Trisha", that I hold on to so
much in every day life will cease to exist, however, that "I" never really
existed, the identity I have constructed for myself in my mind. Not that I
am speaking nihilistically, I just refer to the "I" I have constructed for
myself.
I usually contemplate on death each day. It's always
helpful because my death could be today ;) and one day it will be lol.
Many people wake up, and they think it is a day like any other, but in
fact it is the day they are going to die. All those little things they
were worried about, things they had to do etc, places they had to see that
day, it means nothing really. In fact, if we really meditate on our own
death, most of what we do is utter distraction and really means nothing.
All of us wake up each day, and some of us are not here at the end of the
day. Our death will be on a day just like today, nothing special.
I
often say to my Lama that I don't feel I am doing enough for others, or
that I am effectual or that I am not making much difference to the
suffering in the world. He always reassures me. He says if each day when I
wake, I set my motivation that everything I do today is for the benefit of
all beings then that is a good start and every action will have that
motivation behind it. He then says if I am doing my level best to benefit
others, if I am trying to keep a positive compassionate patient mind, then
that is all I can do. We are probably all making more of an impact than we
realise. Just like the starfish story, even if it just makes a difference
for one being, then thats a good thing.
Because I am Tibetan
Mahayana buddhist, I often pray each day that when I and all sentient
beings die, we will go to Dewachen. If we pray with a good ultruistic
motivation, then we may just be fortunate enough for those prayers to be
realised. For those of you who are not familiar what Dewachen is in
Buddhism :-
http://www.tonglen.oceandrop.org/Dewachen.htm
In Buddhism, praying to be
reborn in Dewachen is a good prayer for all animals who are killed each
day or when we see a dead animal on the road, or when we hear of a
someone's death or they are terminally ill, or for all the thousands of
children dying of unnecessary poverty each day etc, all these instances
are good prayer opportunities and to pray for this outcome. I pray for
Dewachen because for most of us, despite probably not being karmically
ready for a Buddha pure realm, Dewachen is where one can receive teachings
and become enlightened so one can return to help others in Samsara (cyclic
existence).
Highly realised Lamas have no fear of death or anything
really because they have an incredible understanding and direct
realisation of Emptiness and possess pure bodhicitta (ultimate great
compassion). I'm sorry I mention Emptiness often, but it's so incredibly
important and one doesn't have to be any particular religion to utilize
this incredible teaching. There are many books on this by many wonderful
Lamas. One can go to http://www.snowlionpub.com/ to find many texts on this
topic.
A direct realisation of Emptiness cuts the root of all
ignorance & suffering. If we all had this direct realisation of
Emptiness, we would not fear anything or be concerned about death or about
what others thought of us, or if someone talks badly about us or if we
have a billions dollars or 1 dollar, we would not be holding on to the
identity based on ignorance and delusion we have built up about ourselves,
the "I". What we would care greatly about is benefitting others and that
would be our ONLY concern. In fact this state would be Nirvana on
earth.
I remember a quote by St Therese of Lisieux "My heaven will
be spent on earth." She was a bodhisattva with most likely a realisation
of Emptiness. Heaven, Nirvana is right here right now, except we, with all
our delusions, self grasping, ignorance etc, cannot see it.
HH Dalai
Lama said: "If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you
want to be happy, practice compassion"
As well as spending a part
of our daily meditation on Emptiness, there is a time of death where we
have an opportunity as well to perceive our clear light mind and realise
emptiness. There are texts about this and practices (phowa etc) one can
also do at this time. If we meditate each day and do various practices
related to death, we can utilize this special time. If our karma permits,
we can liberate ourselves at the time of death from this unending cycle of
rebirth for the benefit of others.
The "I", that self that is just
a construct of so many things; thoughts, concepts, ignorances,
selfishness, delusions, projections etc, the "I" that is always worrying
about itself - "what is going to happen to ME" and "how could they do that
to ME" "how could that guy push his car in front of "me" like that and on
and on. Who is this "I" I keep protecting and which is creating so much
suffering for myself and others. This "I" I grasp is the creator of all my
suffering.
The Lama's always encourage us to work on ridding
ourself of this "I" which does not really exist. Not to be misunderstood
with nihilism, but the constructed "I" that we believe in, which separates
us from others and makes us believe we independently exist and that keeps
us from seeing all as interconnected. We all wish to be happy, we are all
going to die and we all suffer no matter who we are. The moment I let go
of that constant concern about the "I" "I" and direct my concern about
others, I feel my body and mind relax and I feel a true feeling of peace.
I feel my heart relax. If I could be aware every waking moment that I am
projecting my own movie on to everyone and everything around me, I might
actually start to see things a little how they truly exist. If I can
really work each day on awareness of thoughts, actions and speech each
moment and meditate on this each day, I could one day cut the roots of
ignorance, the ego, the "I" and be free to experience what is truly around
me and the interconnectedness, the Buddhas-to-be which are all around me
and the earth which is a beautiful mandala. I could truly liberate myself
from my own prison of suffering. Wouldn't that be wonderful :) I hope we
all experience this one day.
Karma does not mean
fate. Rather it is Sanskrit for action, but it is used
with the connotation of consequence, or reaction as we mean it in physics and
chemistry. But that is not to say it is a direct cause and effect
process. In Tibetan the concept is conveyed by las.rgyu.abras
that is literally, action-seed-result. Therefore it is not entirely
correct to speak of good or bad karma. In other words, there is not
one single moment when we do not "make" karma.
 |
Translator Ken
MacLeod's
explanation. |
Buddhists do not generally
believe in a cosmic judge who assigns consequences; result follows
naturally from the action. However, since we will inevitably
regret karma that is the product of harmful or negative actions, we do
hear some Buddhists using expressions such as, "Incurring a karmic debt"
or "Having to repay karmic debts" as if we were talking about book-keeping
practices.
In that case, karmic is
being used as a kind of shorthand to refer to the condition or status of
consequences as if it were possible to halt the flow of karma and examine
the state of on-going process.
What influences karmic
consequences?
We are told that there are five
conditions that modify the "weight" of karma -- three are subjective and
two objective.
The three subjective conditions
are
(a) persistence or repetition of the
action
(b) willful intent on doing the action,
and
(c) absence of any regret.
The objective conditions
are
(d) the quality and
(e) degree of indebtedness
incurred towards the one[s] at which the action is directed.
Khyabje Kalu
Rinpoche (d.1989) discussed two forms of karma in Luminous Mind,
(Wisdom Publications:)
Among the different types of karma, we can further
distinguish
propelling karma and completing
karma.
o Propelling karma, as its name
suggests, propels one into a state of existence, whatever that may
be.
o Completing
karma determines the specific circumstances within that state of
existence; it fills in the basic outline produced by the propelling
karma.
These two types of
karma can combine so that" ... if the
karma propelling a certain mode of existence were positive and the
completing karma that fills in the particulars were negative, we may take
birth in a higher state of consciousness, but we would experience
unpleasant conditions in that lifetime. For example, although we might
take birth as a human, we would be poor.
Conversely, a negative propelling karma associated
with a positive completing karma would cause us to take birth in a
lower-realm existence in which we would enjoy good circumstances.
For example, we might be born in the West as a domestic animal that had
very privileged living conditions."
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His Eminence
Jamgon Tai Situ (in Shenpen Osel:)
"If we think of
doing good karma as opposite to bad karma, and doing
one
good thing to purify one bad thing, then enlightenment will
never
happen." |
Some teachers have pointed out that there
are other factors that contribute to consequences. Accidents happen,
too.
|
Reincarnation and karma: Contrary
to the widely-held notion prevalent on some television shows, we are
not always "given" choices so that we can "learn a lesson." |
Karma and
Incarnation
Khenpo Karthar, abbot of
Karma Triyana Dharmachakra says in response to the question about whether we
have any choice in our birth family:
" ... . In fact, we did not have a choice at all. It was brought
about by our karma. Choosing implies that we pick the human form and we
have the capacity to choose which family (the father and mother with
whom we want to take birth). We do not have that choice.
Based on the strength of positive and negative karma, this had to
happen, so there is no choice involved. We could say that ignorance is
implied there because we had no choice. Because of not having a choice
about our parents or where we will take birth, it could be said that
ignorance is involved. To give an example of the force of karma, it is
very similar to going up in an airplane and throwing thousands of pieces
of paper out of it. How far they would go and where they land depends on
how the wind blows them. Likewise, where we are born, what family we are
born in and what sort of form we have, are based on the power of the
karma, not on our choice. For some spiritually advanced beings,
it is quite different. They have [many] fewer defilements. They do have
a choice as to where they will take birth, even in what form and in what
family."
LK, at the Kagyu list reminds us that the
term karma only refers to consequences of intentional acts (since
we usually have no control over any other kind.)
Karma itself is the result of volitional
(chosen) action. Not always are the choices completely conscious, they
can be the result of such things as affect, subconscious disposition and
of course, conscious decision.
In addition to that karma or volitional
action has two sides, the side of its intention, and the side of its
reception. One might intend something in one way, only to have someone
receive it in entirely another way. Karma generates one or another
kinds of reaction, or vipaka. This is why the terms are
often found together in Pali writings eg. Kamma-Vipaka or
'action-reaction,' and in Tibetan ones too.
Most karmas
(volitional actions) ripen (cause a vipaka or reaction) in the lifetime
we are in. Sometimes they don't entirely ripen or completely bear
fruit (Skt. vipaka) in this lifetime or in the recent memory of
one still living. In that case, if there is "more to come in the
story" then we refer to this as a 'seed of karma.' That seed waits
for the right conditions to bear fruit. It is these 'seeds
of karma' that can carry over for weeks, years, or even
lifetimes.
___________________________________________________
Reaction:
Formulating a third principle that describes the conditions of the
material universe, Sir Isaac Newton (late 1600's) stated: "To every
action there is an equal and opposite reaction." Existence entails a chain
of action-reaction. However we must also consider this metaphor
within the context of the findings concerning entropy [the tendency
towards disorder] of Clausius, and also of Ludwig Bolzmann in the late 1800's. But the law of karma has
been known for thousands of years. Therefore karma is not good or bad in
the context of whether it is beneficial to the progress of all sentient
beings. Karma itself, just is. It is function of
existence.
Some may prefer a metaphor
taken from botany -- seeds that ripen into plants that fruit, and
eventually die, etc. |