karma – Meditative Man

Power of Wisdom

Before the break, we talked about how compassion and wisdom are the two pillars of Buddha’s sutra teachings. So today, let’s discuss wisdom. If you think about a relationship, that’s it, isn’t it? If you can remove disharmony using wisdom, your relationships are perfect.

One of the verses goes when I associate with others, I will consider myself lower and hold everyone supreme. So the best way to do this is to familiarize ourselves with Cherishing all living beings by putting our determination to cherish them into practice.

So, through thinking about the kindness of others, the benefits of cherishing others what happens is we make a determination I want to cherish others, I want to love others. We have talked about this before, that what we end up doing every day depends upon what we wish for. It all starts with intention. If we develop that wish to love everyone then we will slowly start practicing that and grow our love for other living beings. It just will happen naturally.

It is perfectly possible to do this because we have the seed of universal love. We have Buddha Nature, which means we’ve always had the potential to grow our love, expand our love, and deepen our love, to every single person.

The main reason why we do not cherish all living beings as explained in the book Mirror of Dharma, is we’re so preoccupied with ourselves. This leaves very little room in our minds to appreciate others. So therefore if we wish to cherish others sincerely, we have to reduce our obsessive self concern.

Sad to break it to you but our self-cherishing, obsessive self concern is the source of all disharmony.

Everywhere we look, our mind is polluted by this surface of self-concern. It just alters everything we see. You know, we can’t actually see what’s going on because we’re so obsessed with ourselves. And that’s just reflected in our minds. So why is it? Why is it that we regard ourselves as so precious, but not others? I am just one person others are countless. Why are we so obsessed about it? Me? Me, me?

One major reason is we’re so familiar with thinking about ourselves, it’s a familiarity of habit.

And the Geshe-la says, Why because we’re so familiar with self-cherishing we’re very familiar with an attitude that puts ourselves first. We have been doing it since beginningless time in our lives, which is why we’re still circling in suffering. Since the beginningless time we have grasped at a truly existent I this is the root of it. So a truly existent I is an I that exists from its own side. But basically, we have two ego minds that are the very kind of root of all our problems. And one is called self-grasping, meaning we’re grasping at a self that exists from its own side.

We think there’s a real me or real I and we think everyone else is not me or either other or self or there are also other or them or you know, him or her or something like that. We have done this experiment before. Show of hand where is the me in this room? Everyone of us think we are that me and everyone else is something other than me right? Now if the I was inherently existent, it would be same for all of us. But it’s not.

So it’s only our ignorance that thinks I’m really me, and everyone else is really other. Because I have this sense of real me, I then think that this me is more important than all the other me’s. So I’m more important than you just as simple as that.

We spend so much time contemplating our real or imagined good qualities that we become oblivious to our faults. So, in reality, our mind is full of gross delusions, but we ignore them and may even fool ourselves into thinking that we do not have such repulsive minds, like pretending there’s no dirt in our house after sweeping it, under the rug. So when we think about our own faults and delusions, the reason we do this is with the view of getting rid of them right not to feel bad about ourselves. Because these faults and delusions, as most of you know, are not intrinsic to our mind, these delusions are like salt, for example, salt, in salty water, they’re not the actual nature of the water, we can get rid of them. We don’t want to identify with our faults and limitations. We do have to realize our faults and limitation but not identify with them if that makes sense.

But Geshe Geshe-la says it is often so painful to admit that we have faults that we make all types of excuses rather than alter our results view of ourself, and one of the most common ways of not facing up to our own faults is to blame others. For instance, we have a difficult relationship with someone. We naturally include that it’s entirely their fault. That’s true, isn’t it? They should really change, you know. And then we’ll be so happy. Anyway, good luck with that. Because you know, it’s hard to change even one person, it’s impossible to change anyone other than ourselves, to be honest, and it’s definitely hard to change everybody.

So we naturally conclude it’s their fault, we’re unable to accept that it is at least partly our fault when we have difficult relationships. So instead of taking responsibility for our actions, or making effort to change our views or our behavior, get rid of our faults. We argue with them insists as they who must change an exaggerated sense of our own importance thus leads to a critical attitude towards other people makes it almost impossible to avoid conflict. And I think we’re seeing that in the world today, too. So the fact that we’re oblivious to our faults does not prevent other people from noticing them and pointing them out. But when they do we feel that they’re being unfair. So unfair.

This is self cherishing. That arises from self grasping ignorance. Our inherently existing self. This is the source of all our disharmony. If we learn to remove that, our relationships become easier. Life becomes frictionless. It just flows all of a sudden.

Karma & Dharma

We have been talking about Karma for more than a month now. One thing that keeps coming up is what happens if you do something as part of your job. Does it have a negative effect associated with it? In general, the answer is yes with a few caveats.

Let’s talk about the exceptions first. If there is an imminent danger to living beings and doing harm to one person protects many lives, then there is no negative effect of Karma. There are examples of these in spiritual texts. One example is of Buddha. In his previous life, Buddha was traveling on a boat full of merchants. Through his clairvoyance, he saw that one of the passengers was about to kill the rest of the merchants. To save all of those lives and to save that one passenger from getting negative karma for killing all of those people, Buddha killed the one passenger.

In today’s world, it would be equivalent to knowing an imminent terror threat and neutralizing the terrorists before they could attack. But barring an imminent threat to many lives, there is no justification for negative actions that I could find in the textbooks.

Now it is debatable whether simply working somewhere generates negative action or not. For example, let’s say someone works as a bookkeeper at a slaughterhouse. I am not sure that they generate negative action of killing just by working at the slaughterhouse. Because for negative actions to occur four conditions have to be present as we discussed last week.

So let’s talk about another exception which is what if something is part of your job. The so-called “dharma” we keep talking about. In ancient times, a soldier on a battlefield who followed certain rules and only fought with someone of their equivalency was an exception. This soldier was not affected by his actions. However, in today’s world, modern warfare is such that there are hardly any rules. Everyone is killing everyone else without discrimination and that is certainly not considered an exception. Also, if someone is following an order but knows that the order is morally wrong, then we have a duty not to follow that order otherwise negative actions are attached. Also, continuing killing after someone is no longer a threat has negative actions attached to it. Another thing I want to point out is that a soldier has a duty to avoid collateral damage. If trying to kill one bad person ends up killing 10 innocent people, then there is a negative action attached to it. Again, I refer back to the four conditions we discussed last week.

Now let’s come back to real life. For those of us who are not soldiers, if our job makes us compromise our moral standards, in my opinion, if possible, we should find another job. Let’s take the example of the bookkeeper in a slaughterhouse. Even if they are not collecting any negative karma, the fact that it is against their moral standards would keep bothering them. It would become stressful at times. And it makes sense in that case to go find a different place to work. If for nothing else then for our own sanity.

Buddha said that ” … a lay follower should not engage in five types of business. Which five? Business in weapons, business in human beings, business in meat, business in intoxicants, and business in poison.”

So those five professions one should avoid for sure. Beyond that, a lot of this comes down to our own moral compass and what we are comfortable with. For example, as a rule, I have stayed away from investing in properties where tenants sell alcohol or marijuana. This is a personal rule with the logic being that if I don’t want to consume something then I should avoid making money out of the consumption of those substances.

While doing research on this topic, I came across Laxmi Tantra (one of the five panch tantras). According to Laxmi Tantra, one should avoid making a livelihood through

1. Living off other people (begging for example)

2. Loan sharking

3. Bribery

4. Living by a profession or industry which directly or indirectly causes suffering to other beings such as the meat and leather industries, munitions industries, or brewing and selling of alcohol or drugs.

5. Superintending mines and factories is also forbidden because it can lead to corruption, harshness, and exploitation of the poor and vulnerable. It also leads to the depredation of the environment through deforestation and pollution which are considered sinful activities by the Shastras.

The seven legitimate ways for a spiritual aspirant to make a living are:

1. daya — inheritance

2. labha — profit from honest commerce and trade.

3. kraya — purchase of land and assets for the purpose of speculation.

4. jaya — winning prizes or money in a competition

5. prayoga — through the application of learning and skills to benefit others – through counseling, advising, teaching, etc.

6. karma yoga — through a profession or a vocational job serving others.

7. satpratigraha — the lawful acceptance of gifts — that is, unsolicited donations.

So I hope this clears up a lot of confusion around the issue and hopefully, I have not made the matter worse!

Purifying Negative Karma

We had a request for this teaching so today, we want to discuss how to purify our negative Karma. Now, when we talk about past negative Karma, we are not only talking about this lifetime but all previous lives. By that standard, we have created enormous negative Karma. It is impossible to remove the fact that a negative action has been created. However, we can do something to prevent our negative actions to produce suffering. Every negative action can ripen in one of four possible ways: 1) the ripened effect; 2) the environmental effect; 3) the effect that is experience similar to the cause; and 4) the effect that is tendency similar to cause

What does that mean? Well, the ripened effect is when we end up as an animal. The environmental effect is we are born in a war zone. The effect that is experience similar to the cause is when we experience in our life similar pain. And effect that is a tendency similar to cause puts us in situations where we tend to create similar negative actions over and over again.

The first step in the preparation of purification is that when we are experiencing consequences of our negative Karma, in whatever form that may be in, we should realize that these consequences are due to our past negative Karma and we need to do whatever it takes to purify past negative Karma so we do not end up in this situations again and again.

Here is from the book Universal Compassion by Geshe Kelsang: Strong purification made every day over a long period of time will completely purify even the heaviest negative Karma; less powerful purification will slightly reduce our negativities, and a small amount of purification will prevent the power of the negative Karma from increasing. So any amount of effort we make is helpful.

There are four so-called opponent powers that help us purify negative Karma. They are 1) the power of regret; 2) the power of reliance; 3) the power of the opponent force, and 4) the power of promise.

Let’s look at each one. First is the power of reliance. The power of reliance purifies the environmental effect of negative action. It also subdues our negative karma in general. Most of the objects of our negative actions are other living beings. But at the same time, we have created negative actions against objects of refuge. The objects of our refuge whatever higher authority that we may believe in. Sometimes, we talk down the object of refuge or ridicule these objects. To remove these negative actions or purify these previous negative Karma, we need to develop a reliance on objects of refuge—whatever that may mean to us. This will allow us to generate compassion toward all living beings and that in turn will purify our negative Karma.

The next is the power of the opponent force. The power of the opponent force purifies the ripened effect of the negative karma. It is the direct opponent of negative karma. When we have remorse for a specific negative Karma, and if we apply the opponent to that negative action (antidote of sorts); it helps us purify our negative Karma. What is the opponent force you may ask? It is actually any virtuous action performed to purify a specific negative Karma. Similar to paying a fine for a traffic violation if you will!

The next is the power of regret. It purifies the effect that is experience similar to the cause. It also prevents the effects of negative karma from increasing. If we understand the dangers of suffering created by negative actions, we will develop sincere regret for having committed these actions. If we contemplate that we have created enormous amounts of negative Karma over our lifetimes and we will eventually have to suffer the consequences of that. By contemplating this way, we will develop remorse for our past negative Karma. If our remorse is sincere, we will be determined to prevent future negative Karma. This remorse is what is known as the power of regret. The more regret we generate, the more powerful our purification will be.

The next and final power is the power of promise. It purifies the effect that is a tendency similar to the cause. It also prevents us from repeating the negative karma. This is very important. In this phase, we are promising not to repeat past negative Karma. Without this promise, none of the other powers really work as well. This one power if applied effectively and regularly helps purify our negative Karma. There are types of negative Karma we can give up and promise never to commit again. There may be some negative Karma that we are not ready to give up and we can promise not to commit for a short period of time say a week or a month. We have talked about this before. If you are a fisherman, it is understandable not to promise to kill all living beings. But you can start with every living being except fish. Then later expand to no-killing fish for one day a week and so forth.

After learning all the consequences of our negative Karma, I think it is only appropriate for us to begin to apply these opponent powers to begin purifying our negative Karma. Hope this helps and that you can begin your purification practice in some small way.

Patience

We started discussing the six perfections in detail last week with the perfection of moral discipline. I thought we would talk about one of the other perfections—patience today. Now if you talk to anyone who knows me, they would tell you, I am the least qualified person to talk about patience! So today is the “let’s do what the teacher says and not what he does” kind of lesson!

In “The Boddhisattva Vow” Geshe Kelsang Gyatso defines patience as a virtuous mind that is able to bear harm, suffering, or profound Dharma. Patience is useful whether we are interested in spiritual growth or not. You see, without patience, we are prone to anxiety, frustration, and disquiet. If we lack patience, it is difficult for us to maintain a relationship with others.

Patience is the opposite of anger. We have all seen what anger can do. At a minimum, it prevents us from judging the situation accurately and causes us to act irrationally. Worst of all, it destroys our peace of mind. Anger normally is triggered by something very insignificant, such as a comment we find offensive or a habit we find annoying, and so forth. It leads us to do and say things that create harm to us and others. If we look at all the wars in this world, there is no doubt that they were caused by angry minds. External enemies harm us in slow and subtle ways. Anger, on the other hand, harms us from within.

Patience helps us in this life and all our future lives. The famous Indian sage Shantideva once said, “there is no evil greater than anger, there is no virtue greater than patience”. With patience, we can accept any pain that is inflicted upon us. With patience, nothing destroys our peace of mind and we do not experience any suffering. There are three types of patience:

The patience of not retaliating
The patience of voluntarily enduring suffering
The patience of definitely thinking about Dharma or spirituality

To practice the patience of not retaliating, we need to be mindful of how anger can destroy our peace of mind and be alert when situations arise when we might get angry. We need to think that if someone hits us with a stick it is not the fault of the stick. Similarly, when someone tries to harm us, it is their delusion to be blamed and not themselves. I know, tough to reconcile, right? Another way to think about this is to realize that when someone harms us, it is our Karma that created the situation. We must have harmed them in the past and by patiently accepting the situation, we are able to pay off that karmic debt.

The second kind of patience is the patience of volunteering enduring suffering. If we don’t have this patience, we will give up our tasks as soon as they become difficult. We will become more and more frustrated and we will end up accepting mediocracy. We often come across unpleasant conditions and misfortune. By voluntarily accepting these adversities, we eliminate sufferings from our lives. That does not mean the pain goes away, but it need not cause suffering within us. Instead of self-pity, we strengthen our resolve. We recall that these unpleasant conditions or misfortunes are the results of our previous negative karma and resolve to avoid negative karma moving forward. If we are able to endure adversities, we will be able to reap great rewards. Our present sufferings will diminish. Also, suffering helps us dispel pride, develop compassion and abandon negative karma.

The third type of patience is the patience of definitely thinking about Dharma or spirituality. If we listen to, contemplate, and meditate on spirituality and Dharma, we are practicing patience of definitely thinking of patience. So every Tuesday, when we meet for meditation, we are practicing patience of definitely thinking about Dharma. This is important because it creates a happy and patient mind.

So hopefully, we can all try a little harder to develop the type of patience that we need to work on. We may find a particular type of patience more difficult to practice than others depending upon karmic tendencies. But important thing is to make progress and not get discouraged.

Moral Discipline

In the past, we briefly touched on the six perfections. Six perfections are the guide to living a life on the right path the path that leads to enlightenment. Now that is a tall order for sure but practicing these six perfections would certainly make our daily lives joyful and would bring joy to people around us. So today, let’s talk about the perfection of moral discipline.

In “The Boddhisattva Vow” Geshe Kelsang Gyatso defines moral discipline as a virtuous mental determination to abandon any fault or any action that is motivated by such a determination. That’s it. It is that simple. If we know something is wrong and we make a determination to avoid that, and follow through with it, we are practicing moral discipline.

There are three types of moral discipline; 1) the moral discipline of restraint; 2) the moral discipline of generating virtuous karma; 3) the moral discipline of benefiting other living beings.

Let’s look at each one in detail. The moral discipline of restraint is abstaining from non-virtuous acts. You see to practice this type of moral discipline we first need to understand the dangers of committing negative actions, make a promise to abandon such negative actions, and then follow through on it. Simply not doing something without knowing that it is wrong is not moral discipline. For example, a two-year-old does not know that killing is bad. If they abstain from killing they are not practicing moral discipline. Now, on the other hand, a five-year-old knows killing is bad and then avoids killing ants, they are practicing moral discipline. So if we understand the dangers of ten non-virtuous actions that we have talked about at length during our karma series, promise to refrain from them, and then follow through on that promise, we are practicing the moral discipline of restraint. If we are not ready to abandon all of the negative actions at once, we can take a vow to refrain from one particular type of non-virtuous action for a certain period. Once we keep that promise, we can increase the duration of our promise for a longer time in the next iteration.

To practice this, we need to rely upon our M A C technique. We need to be mindful so we don’t forget our vows. We need to stay alert so that when delusions crop up, we can use our conscientiousness to avoid non-virtuous actions.

Next is the moral discipline of generating virtuous karma. To me, this is easier than the first one but like anything else depending upon our own karma we find one type of moral discipline easier than the other. In this moral discipline, we need to try and generate virtuous karma. Again, it is important to be mindful of what it is that we are doing for that to be considered moral discipline. I am sure there are some benefits of accidental positive karma but positive karma created by mindfulness had the full effect if you will.

The last type of moral discipline is of benefiting living beings. This is the moral discipline of helping others in whatever way that we can. We can offer material help if someone needs it or we can offer advice to them if they are going through a difficult stage in their life or we can teach them dharma or we can pray for them at a minimum. When we help others, we should be sensitive to their needs, state of mind, experience, and point of view. If we come down as Hollier than thou, no matter how good the advice may be, they are not likely to follow it and we are not doing good to anyone.

There is an interesting story of a Tibetan monk. He had a good size following and one day he was giving teaching from a throne to a few hundred followers. There was this lady in the village whose daughter was sick and someone told her that if she put the daughter in the monk’s care, that would save her daughter. So the lady takes a few-month-old daughter in a basket to the monk when he was giving a lecture and said out loud, here keep your daughter. She is your daughter so you raise her. Then she quietly told the monk to save her daughter. Monk just nodded and took the baby in his lap and continued with his teaching. Over the next few years, he raised this baby like she was his own. Once the lady realized that her daughter was healthy she came back to pick her up. Now talk about the moral discipline of helping living beings! Most people would have worried about their reputation and whatnot. Not this monk. He wanted to help and realized that if he challenged the lady, he would not be able to help the baby.

I know none of us are monks but if we apply some of these teachings at a small level in our lives; the world would be a better place.