ACI 5 «Как работает карма», занятие 4

Class Four: Divisions of Karma; Karmic Results
October 27, 1994
transcribed by: Mira Prabha

 ...the mind, and then we talked about bodily and verbal karma, and then last
class we gave the three         types of karma, virtuous, non-virtuous, neutral,
explained why, what they do. So the natural thing to talk about this week is
what happens when you do them, right? You know, like what are the karmic
results, what kind of consequences do you get from different kinds of karma.
And there are many many different presentations in the Abidharma. I gave you
20 something pages, that's only a small group of them, there's many more, but
here are the most basic three, according to when it's going to ripen, when are
you going to experience it. This is the division by when you are going to
experience the karma. First one is {tongyo kyi lay}. Say {tongyo kyi} [repeat]
{lay} [repeat], {tongyo kyi} [repeat] {lay} [repeat]. What's {tong} mean? You
know {tong la} right? {Lay} means karma, and {tongyo}means "which you are
going to see," "karma which you are going to see," and that refers to karma that
you see the result in this same life. So the first division of karma by when you
experience the result is the karma which you see, and that means karma where
you see the results in this life, before you die. And we mentioned before, that's
the basis of the secret teachings and it's also... it would have to be some kind of
powerful karma. I'll explain that more later tonight, what kind of karma is so
powerful that you are going to see the result before you take your next birth.
The second one is {ken ye}, say {ken ye}[repeat] {yong yo kyi}[repeat] {le gyu}
[ repeat]. I was up really late last night so tonight I'm a little buzzed out, okay?
{ken ye} means after born, after you were born. {yong yo kyi lay} means
experienced after you were born.

[student: And {gyu} means what?]

Which will be. {Yong} means experience and {lay} means karma. You don't have
to worry about it because you're not in the Tibetan class. If you're interested, it's
karma which will be experienced after you are born. That doesn't just mean
after you are born. It means in your next life. And it means technically your
second next life. Why? You have to take a bardo birth between that. A bardo is
a separate birth. But it means in your next rebirth.

[student: are you saying bardo in the form of rebirth?]
Yeah, the next birth you take after the bardo connected to this life. Actually a
bardo is a kind of birth also. Don't get confused about it. So the second kind of
karma is karma you experience in the very next life after this one. Say {lendang}
[repeat] {shen la} [repeat] {nom gyur} [repeat] {kyi lay} [repeat]. {lendang}
[repeat] {shen la} [repeat] {nom gyur} [repeat] {kyi lay} [repeat]. {Lendang}
means time, like in two times, three times, four times. {shen} means other, {la}
means in, in another.       {nom gyur kyi lay} means karma which will be
experienced. {nom} means experience, {gyur} means will be, {kyi} here means
which will, and {lay} means karma. So that's karma that will be experienced at
another time, which means, what?

[student: Any time after this lifetime]

Any time after the immediate next life. So could be the second life on to a million
later. That's {lendang shen la nom gyur kyi lay}. What determines when it takes
place is a couple of things. We'll talk about it later today and also you have to
study the Abidharma presentation on the Wheel of Life, that's another story.
They discuss how many births it takes to work out a whole wheel of life, one
wheel. It's more than one birth taking place in that wheel.

[student: So if you were to achieve Buddhahood in the very next life, does the
karma get wiped out?]

Well, it can't be activated. It will never do anything. They say it's like a seed
that's rotten, it will never produce a result. Whether you actually get rid of it or
it disappears is a moot point because it will never... it has no function.

[student: Michael, so the point is that when you achieve Buddhahood, it's not
because you've eliminated all your bad karmic seeds altogether, it's just that
there are so many of them that what's left become inert?]

I'm not sure what the... I believe that's true. They don't emphasize that in the
scriptures. I guess logically it would have to be that way, or maybe you have
some... the word "karma" in Buddhism almost always means "dirty karma".
There is a thing called "pure karma" but it refers to the "dirty karma" of higher
beings. So the things that Buddhas experience, when Buddhas experience a pure
field, when Buddhas experience a paradise as a result of their actions in this life,
they don't often call it "karma". It's not given the word "karma", it's not
presented in the presentations of karma... karma almost always has to do with
samsara. When a Buddha does good deeds for trillions of years and as a result of
that he achieves a Buddha field, they don't really call that karma, though, they
just call it the result of his deeds. So that's just...you only know that by reading a
lot of scriptures. You notice that after a while they're not talking about the
Buddhas in terms of karma. So karma has this connotation of ignorant karma.
That good or bad it's going to reach into all this kind of fluctuating results, where
even the good things you get wear off. So those are the three basic conditions of
the first wave. Vasubandhu's going to define it in many many different ways.

[student: What is the "it" you are referring to?]

Excuse me?

[student: What is the "it" you're referring to?]

Oh, karma. Millions of ways. I mean, all four chapters of the Abidharma. It's
long. And I'm not going to give you all of them. It's too many. We'll touch on
the most important. Abidharma gives another division.... there are four kinds of
karma which will definitely ripen, and I thought that would be useful for you.

[silence]

[student: Won't they all ripen?]

No, not according to the Abidharma.

[student: I thought that was one of the rules of karma, that it had to ripen.]

There's a very famous... the Abidharma is sort of [unclear] on this point, I mean
the Vinaya is very clear about it, the Buddha over and over again repeats this
verse and it's later repeated by Chandrakirti, Nagarjuna, [unclear],
Avalokiteswara, Bharatha, many different... the one especially that the Buddha ..
is a famous {unclear} is karma can never go away, karma can never just
disappear, impossible. Now whether a karma will definitely produce its results
or not, how certain is it that it will be activated, or that it's fixed... the Abidharma
talks about karmas which are certain and karmas which are not certain.
Sometime they say that... Abidharma is a little bit different. So any way, you can
take these as karmas... things that make karma very certain to give you a result.
Like if you kill someone unintentionally or something, that's a little bit weaker.
But these are four that must ripen into future experience, that must be
experienced as one of those three we were just talking about. They say that if
these four elements are present, the likelihood that the karma is going to come
back to you is very certain. Generally, any karma you do is going to come back
to you. But these are like more ...you'll see.

[student: Oh, so these are the four...]

Well, we'll go through them. {chud drakpo} means... {chud} means powerful
force, {drakpo} means fierce, like those tantric deities who are fierce are called
{drakpo}. And {chud drakpo} means that the emotion is very strong, like if you
commit a karma with fierce anger, or if you commit a virtue with fierce faith,
feelings of faith, you know, you've had them in your life, like when you almost
cry because of some very fierce emotion that you have. That's the first element
that would make a karma very certain to produce a future result.

[student: Powerful emotion?]

Yeah, if its related with a powerful emotion, a fierce emotion, either good or bad.
It can be love for a lama, it can be fierce anger or fierce jealousy... the last two are
negative karmas.

[student: I've lost the reference. Is it a deed accompanied by a powerful emotion,
or...]

Yeah, which is related, not the emotion itself. Which is related to that.

[student: So what we would refer to as a crime of passion would...]

Be even worse.

[student: It's worse than a cold, calculated....]

I don't know. Greed can be pretty passionate and be cold and calculating too.

[student: I mean, like a Nazi crime, which is totally, a very clinical state of mind,
as opposed to someone in a jealous rage who kills someone close to them.]

I think you could almost say that except that the Nazi would probably be in
fierce ignorance. To be able to do that over and over again with cold calculation
is like a fierce kind of ignorance. To be cold and detached about it is a very
strong emotion of ignorance. Know what I mean? Mental dysfunction, you
could say? That person doesn't have any shame, he's not embarrassed, he thinks
its a normal thing to do, to kill people... I'd say that was an overwhelming
ignorance, which would also be included in here.

[silence]

[student: So you're saying emotion in the form of a thought also?]

Yeah. The two examples given in the scripture are anger and faith. So they have
to be emotions, but...they do later.... they describe... the Abidharma is very dry.
[laughs] You may have got some feeling of it by now, but a lot of people can't
stand reading Abidharma. But if you really appreciate it.... I mean, it gives you
the information you need... it's an encyclopedia of the brain and the spirit. It's
very good. So they discuss the possibilities between like... can you commit
adultery of hatred? You want to hurt the spouse, so you go with this person's
spouse, because you hate the person. You don't have any desire for the spouse,
you just want to hurt the person.

[student: That always come back to an emotion, I mean, I'm thinking for
example....]

Then they say ignorance, you know, the way animals kill animals.

[student: For example, if someone says, I know I'm right and I'm sure I'm right,
and they do something. Would that be called [unclear]]

Yeah, that would be a strong feeling. If a Nazi says it's right we have to kill these
people, it's morally right, we have to clean up the country, that's just a ... they
talk about {unclear}, they talk about {marikpa chichewa}. {marikpa chichewa}
means that person's mind as he commits that bad karma is controlled by
ignorance, and that's as bad as anger. It's worse. So it would qualify as number
one. Ignorance, just pure stupidity.

[student: Any angry thought then would qualify as...any harsh or impure
thought...]

It's a long story. I mean, there's this thing about identification of the object. If
you think it's your enemy in a dark alley and you shoot him, and then it turns
out not to be your enemy, it's a little bit less. That's another story. Say {yende ni
shi} [repeat]. {yende} means what? {yende} means good quality, good personal
quality. And {shi} means basis, or object. And here it refers to the three {ratnas},
the Buddha, Dharma, Sangha. You guys know what they are technically.
Buddha is easy, an Enlightened Being. Dharma is not the teachings. The
teachings are called Dharma, but they're not the real Dharma. Real Dharma is
cessation and those paths, and the real Sangha is people who have seen
Emptiness directly, whether they wear robes or not. In this school, selflessness is
described in the second chapter what makes you an Arya? what makes you a
Sangha? And when they go for refuge, it's a little bit different from the higher
schools. So {yende ni shi} means some extraordinary virtuous object and it
means the three {ratnas}, if you do something against them or something for
them. Like there were people in India who tried to harm the Buddha, and that
kind of extraordinary karma is certain to produce a result.

[student: How does that work? I've never understood how that works. It
makes no logical sense to me that just by virtue of walking around a [unclear]
object you get karma...]

All right, we'll get to it, we'll discuss it tonight. We'll get there. Basically it's this,
and that's why it's so bad to commit suicide. The human body... anything that's
close to producing Enlightenment is so rare. The word "Three Gems" means
{koinchock} means "rare"... and it's so rare that someone gets close to
understanding everything they need to know to get out of suffering that
anything you do... it's like destroying the last AIDS medicine in the world or
something. It's like a horrible crime against humanity to commit suicide if you
already know some Dharma.

[student: I understand that. What I don't understand is how that equates with
walking by a being [unclear]]

[laughs] It's just being in the environs of a very holy object.

[student: There's no motivation, there's no intention, there's none of the four
components.]

There's {mu shi} which is that the thing is actually very holy. There's this famous
story of a fly...

[student: That doesn't make sense to me.]
Yeah, it's there, it's a very famous... it's in the Abidharma also. That story is
given in the Abidharma, or a similar story.

[student: [unclear] not such a high being, I mean, being around...]

Yeah, right, there's this order, there's this pecking order. Buddha, and then
there's Arhats, and then they say Aryas, and then they say [unclear], and then
they say lamas [unclear]. {yende ki shi}.

[student: What kind of things do you have to do against these people?
Anything? Or...]

Yeah, you can do anything physical.

[student: So it could be physical or verbal?]

Yeah. And mental too.

[student: Mental too?]

Like, ah, that's all just a bunch of malarkey. [laughs]

[student: How is that different than being skeptical?]

Being skeptical is required of a good Buddhist. Buddha said: "Take my words
like gold. File them, cut them, burn them." It's a famous quotation. And it's the
way you should be to anyone who seems to be bad in the world. Say: "I don't
really know, they could be a Boddhisattva trying to teach us something. But I
have to resist what this person appears to be to me and also I don't believe in this
person right now, I mean, it looks like a bad deed to me." But you don't hate
them or you don't... know what I mean?

[student: You don't judge, is that what you mean?]

You don't judge, but you do judge insofar as you do what you know to be right.
You just don't decide in your mind that this is a bad person, because you can't
read their mind.

[student: You're saying discriminate, but don't make a moral judgement?]
I don't know... you don't hate them. Hatred will cause you problems. You say
this is wrong, this has to be resisted, but you don't hate the person and you don't
decide... in Tibetan it's called {tak chep pa}, you don't finalize in your mind that
this person is evil. You can't be sure. What he's doing is evil, you must resist it.
What are his real motivations? Maybe he's setting things up, maybe he can see
the future, he has to be in this place to shoot Hitler or something... you don't
know, you just don't know. He could be pretending to be bad, you don't know.
You release judgement on him, but on his actions you say this is a bad action, I
have to resist it, insofar as my knowledge, insofar as my vows, I have to resist
this person. You must check the Dharma, you must check things. The Buddha
requires it. Otherwise you won't be a good Buddhist, because when the next
thing that sounds good comes along, you'll follow it, you'll change easily.

[student: So why are you saying that this is malarkey?]

Malarkey is like... you say it sounds like malarkey to me, let me investigate it
further. That's okay. To say "it is malarkey", that's different. We've said before in
these classes, ultimately, according to Tsongkapa, you will see that every single
line in Buddhist scripture makes sense, that it all ties together, and that's there are
no contradictions in all those tens of thousands of books, maybe 300,000 books.
There's no contradiction at all. But that takes a long time. It takes a deep
understanding before you reach that level. And in the meantime you have to
suspend judgment. It's better, it's healthier to say, it doesn't make sense to me,
that argument sounds a little silly, it's in the scripture, I'll leave it for now. That's
much better.

[student: But don't you have to judge? Like when you're looking for a teacher
and there's different steps, judging a good teacher, bad teacher, and following a
good teacher who follows the.... you have to judge...]

We talked about the ten qualities in the first class, the very first class. The ten
qualities of a good teacher. Yes, you must judge that. You can't decide... you
take that list of ten things which the Buddhists wrote, which actually Maitreya
stole, and then you apply them to the best of your ability at that point. You have
to do that.

[student: Don't you think that this is a contradiction? Because you just said you
shouldn't judge, but now you're saying you have to judge...]

Judge his actions... let's take Buddhist teachers who drink alcohol. You could say
definitely this guy is an alcoholic, he's definitely a bad person, he definitely wants
to drink alcohol for the effect, or is he doing it for some other reason? We don't
know, we can't know, just leave it alone, leave it alone.

[student: So what do we do?]

You don't follow a teacher who drinks, but you don't judge the teacher. See
what I mean? Like any other person, you can't judge.... But if you're going to
follow the scriptures, you can't follow a teacher who drinks. That's all.

[student: So the Buddha... when he killed all those people... if somebody saw
him, would not have followed him?]

No, not at all, and he wasn't a Buddha at that time. He was a Boddhisattva.
That's a difficult question... but basically, follow those ten rules. Look for a
teacher who has the ten qualities. They're plain old normal [unclear]. Maybe
some day we'll get up to the level where a teacher can be wild and we'll be able
to learn from that. But in the meantime... everybody wants to be the special
half-percent. But that's not necessary. Dalai Lama's very good. Nice, normal,
holy person... [laughter] Okay, anyway, {gin chak sa}. {gin chak sa} means over
and over again, we say on a continual basis. This means any bad deed that you
are addicted to and that you keep doing over and over again, the power of that
would be... it'll get stronger and then that will be certain to produce a result. I
mean, technically, which you will learn later, anything you do produces a result,
but there's a lot of special cases. And in Mahayana, of course, there's the
purification methods by which you can remove the effects, if, if it's done
properly. And done properly implies that you don't do it again. That's not easy.
Or that you control yourself very well in the future. This is like if you can't stop
looking at girls your whole life. You know you're not supposed to and you do.

[student: Even if you're not a monk?]

Yeah, even if you're not a monk. I do that, I was brought up that way. My
father said "check this one out", you know. I'd say, "yeah!" And it's been hard for
me to break my whole life. So that's {gin chak sa}. If I keep doing it over and
over again, the effect will be more powerful and more certain to produce results.
Or some people are compulsive liars, some people... anybody who's in this plain,
which is called the desire realm. If you got here and you're not a tantric deity of
something, you have one, at least one. It's different, each person's is different.
But whatever we have, it took us all to the same level. We're all on the same
level. You're just a normal person, then you have something to overcome, you
have some {gin chak sa} problem or you wouldn't be here. You just... when you
see Emptiness directly you'll realize about the other realms, realize that everyone
in this realm has some common denominator that put us in this realm, and you
still have that problem. And everyone has their own. All right. Say {ama}
[repeat] {sapa} [repeat], {ama} [repeat] {sapa} [repeat]. Now you took my first
week of Tibetan, in Dharamsala, twenty years ago. And I wanted to get into the
dance course, and {unclear} Rinpoche, this great lama, wanted me to be in the
course, but I had to pass an oral examination, so he said, what's the Tibetan word
for this, and for this, and I had no idea. He says, how do you say "papa and
mama"? [laughter] I said "ma ma". And he said, right, you're in the class. {sapa}
means to kill. And the line in the Abidharma Kosha says, even if its with a
virtuous intent, even if you think you're putting them out of their misery or
something, like euthanasia, it is murder of your father and mother. And I was
close to that. My mother was dying and there were big discussions in the family.
Should she undergo these treatments that would keep her alive for another
week, or should we just forego it. According to Abidharma, according to
Buddhism generally, you must keep them alive as long as you can.

[student: You're saying that if the motivation is to benefit them, still it's bad
karma?]

That's what the Abidharma specifically says in this line. And you can read it in
your reading. Vasubandhu takes the time to say, even if you think you're
putting them out of pain or something like that, it's one of the worst deeds you
can do. So you have to be very careful.

[student: Would that hold in a situation... like where modern technology enables
us to continue life beyond the point where...?]

Rinpoche said yes. He has said that. And he's also said he never wants to be
connected up....[laughter] I just wouldn't fool around with this. It's karmically
too dangerous. I wouldn't even ...my argument is always something quite
different, which is that if they are going to go to hell after this life, you're not
helping them. I mean, to think that you're taking them out of pain is... why do
you think that? Do you think they're going to disappear? Do you think their
mind is going to stop? Don't you think they're going to go somewhere the next
minute afterwards, and are you sure that place is better than the pain they're in
now? I mean, the odds, according to all Buddhist scriptures are infinitely against
it. So it's a kind of ignorance to me. You're not putting them out of any pain.
They're probably going to experience much worse pain shortly afterwards.

[student: But sometimes longing for survival subjects them to more suffering.]

Tiny suffering compared to where most of us will go afterward. I mean, the
suffering of all the other realms is infinitely worse than the worst suffering in this
world. According to scripture.

[student: So according to this here, if you have the means to sustain a person...]

You should not.

[student: So if a person decides not to, like say, my wishes are that I don't want
to be connected to the machine, then we have to sort of abide by those wishes.
Is that person considered to be committing suicide, in a way?]

[laughs] I guess by extension you could say that. I haven't heard anyone discuss
that.

[student: Well, there's people who do living wills...]

I know that people do that. No, I've had people.... My stepmother told me she
wouldn't want to be... she asked me to sign a document which said that she be
disconnected when the time came. I said I just couldn't do that. It's just too
dangerous. So I don't see... I'm not sure... I guess technically it would be like that.
But it's a misconception. You're not going to be in a better place five minutes
after you die. Probably.

[student: But you've got to go there anyway! Might as well.... [laughter] Yeah,
might as well get it over with, you know. It's not like it's going to shorten that
period, is it?] [laughter]

[laughs] I don't know.

[student: If its suicide, it doubles it.]

I don't know. I said before, I'm your friend, I have to tell you what I know. This
is what I know. I studied for a long time. I haven't seen anything in the
scriptures to contradict that. And I really worked hard [unclear] 20 years ago. I
can't see anything in the scriptures that says anything else. As far as morality
goes, as I said before, it's not right or wrong.    How do you define virtue in
Buddhism?

[student: That which will cause you pleasure.]

Yeah, that which will cause you pleasure. And non-virtue is that which will cause
you pain. And who decides that? Who decided what is going to cause pain and
what's not going to cause pain?

[student: It's physics.]

Yes, but I mean who... [laughs]. It is physics, in other words, a natural law. I
can't change it. Nobody can change it. I can't even recognize it, which means I
can't tell you what deed will lead to pleasure and what deed will lead to suffering.
I don't have that ability. Nobody does. I mean you have to take it on the
Buddha's {tsokya, shinta tsokya}. It's totally hidden to a normal human being.
You cannot know. Therefore you must study. That's all you can do. You can
extend... by extension you can say, well, it looks like its bad to hurt people, I
understand the rules now pretty clearly, and at the end of the Vinaya scriptures
it says, by the way, apply this to all the other cases. He gave you like 200 rules
and then he says there are going to be thousands of other cases, use your
judgement. But I mean that... on some of these calls, you have to... it's not good
or bad, it's what will produce pleasure or pain for you. And we can't see that
clearly. Only the Buddha can. You have to think of it like that. You have an
omniscient being who's saying, look, if you do this, it's going to cause you pain.
[laughs] We know from the other class why to take the [unclear]. We studied
that the whole class.

[student: Is there anything you can elaborate on as to how that natural law
works, or why it's natural law? That causes you to...]

Yeah, some people have said, well, isn't that self-existence? Know what I mean?
That this should cause you pain. No, it's not, it's not that... well, then are you
saying could it never change, so that when you did a harmful action to someone
you would get a good feeling about it? No, it would never change. Is it self-
existent? No. And then we'll talk more about that. Is it just because something's
always working that way, that it's self-existent? Why, we're going to study in the
7th and 8th classes. It's totally connected to perception and Emptiness. If you
don't get that part, I don't think you can buy all this. You want to know how
karma works. I thought it was so important that I called the course "How
Karma Works." We didn't get to that yet. [laughs]

[student: I'm confused about... we speak in terms of acts of body and speech.
And yet here, with the first type here, somebody asked whether the feeling
alone, fierce emotion, was in effect a bad deed...]

It is a bad deed. It is a bad karma. But what I meant was that normally this first
one is explained as having great anger while you kill someone. See what I
mean? It's normally explained that way.]

[student: So it's two actions really, is it not?]

They say it's two karmas. It's the {sem pe le} and the {sam pe le}. What's that?
It's the motivating anger and it's the deed which is motivated by it. It is two
deeds. We covered that in the first...last week.... that the anger that you have
that causes you to move your body to kill the person is itself a karma. We're
going to get to that in the Friday classes actually. Tom asked me some questions
about that. And I went and dug up some scriptures and we're actually covering
that on Friday nights, if you want to come. If you'd like to have another two
hours... but there's some monastic text books that go into all the problems, they
go into all the questions. And that's how you learn the normal stuff, by
discussing the questions. You discuss the problem, you know, the things that are
unclear. That's the method in the monastery.

[silence]

A few things that will make karma ripen in this life. That would be interesting to
know, right? Now I'm going to get into trouble with some of you again, but
anyway. [laughs] This is a different thing, okay? If someone wants to know
what makes a karma so powerful that it's going to give a result before you die,
what will make it microwave cooking, of the karma. And there's two things that
can do it, and the first one's called {shing gyi kepa}, you'll love the example in the
reading. {unclear} interprets it, the First Dalai Lama, and he says the Buddha
himself took birth as a monk...the Buddha was a real bad boy in his former lives,
just like us, which is comforting. And he was a monk, he was living in a
monastery, there was another monk, they were both very learned monks, both
great scholars, up with the scriptures, and there was a falling out within the
monks, the monks had a -- what do you call it? A schism. So this other monk
patches it up. He worked very hard, he talked to each person separately, he
used reasoning, he brought the whole Sangha back together, and the other
monk got jealous, the Buddha got jealous, and he said, "a woman has brought
the women back together," and he meant it as an insult. At the time in India, a
woman's place, it's still... you can see in Dharamsala, a guy walks ahead, the
ladies are not even allowed to walk with him, she walks behind, yells at her like
that [laughs]. They say because of that deed, the {shing gyi kepa}, {shing} means
object, the object for which he did the deed, which is was that in essence the
whole Sangha and that very good monk who brought the whole Sangha back
together which is traditionally the work of the two greatest disciples of the
Buddha, they're called the "great bringers-back together"... {shing gyi kepa}...
{kepa} means distinction, distinctive object. So the object there was so powerful,
it was a monk who had just managed to bring back... it's a great good deed to
heal a schism of religious people, and so the other monk was jealous. He
collected a lot of bad karma. He was born, he took a bad birth for 48(?) lives or
something....

[student: It says in the reading that he turned into a woman in that life...]

[laughs] [laughter] No, he did, that's a {tongyo ki le}.

[student: In that very life?]

Well, in India, in those days... you know, this is the thing that feminists use to say
that Buddhism is down on women and things like that. They never quote the
other part which says that in the higher teachings it's the opposite case, I cannot
tell you about it, but in the higher teachings, the secret teachings, the whole thing
is turned around. So I think the men should write books about how Buddhism is
sexist, but, anyway. It's nothing to do with that. It's just that in Abidharma, in
this system, it was not, and in India it was not a great birth to take. You wouldn't
have opportunities to study, you wouldn't be able to... even in Tibet, I think, the
study of the women was not great. I think you are the first women really to go
through the Geshe courses in an organized way, that I'm aware of. I know that
they're trying to do it in Dharamsala. Even the nuns. They had teachings, and in
the Vinaya, a monk has to come and teach them. But I think that you're the first
women really to get the first philosophical parts directly.

[student: How is this different than behaving towards a moving object? Same
idea?]

Same idea.
[student: Less than a holy object or something?]

The things that make an object distinctive are discussed later, and they are your
parents because they helped you so much, your lama because he can get you out
of suffering, things like that.

[student: What is the essence of this? I'm not getting it...]

The essence of it is that if you want to know what makes a karma so powerful
that it's going to give its result in this very life, it's the object towards which you
are doing it. The first thing...you can say a very important object. I give my
money to the monastery because I know it's a {shing ke bo che}. I mean that's
not my motivation... but you have to decide where to give money. There's a
whole list. You give money to feed dogs, you give money to feed poor people,
you give money to feed monks, you give money to feed your root lama, and
each one of those is a {shing ke bo che}, that's an object which is karmically very
powerful, potent. Why? Because that lama can prevent poverty among a couple
of trillion people [laughs] if he works good. The causes of poverty are not
knowing how to give. So that's... it's just a very powerful... the object towards
whom you did the deed is very powerful.

[student: Can you basically determine whether it's powerful by it's ability to do
more than the others? Is that the [unclear] definition of karma?]

Yeah, really, the power to benefit many people. Rinpoches just dump(?)
countless people, same as the Dalai Lama did. Obviously he's made a decision
there, he knows what's an important object. It doesn't mean that if you meet a
poor person you shouldn't help them. You must help them, you must do all
you can to help everybody. But these are going to be karmically much more
powerful.

[student: In view of the fact that the society in which the Buddha lived was very
limited, in many ways, isn't it possible to interpret the sexual morality in the
same light? That... I mean, we had those four ways of interpreting the Buddha's
intent through the capacity of the listener, so isn't it possible that when he made
those very rigorous rules, it was to fit in with the Hindu society because
otherwise they wouldn't listen to anything else he said?]

It's possible, I don't think it's likely. And I think you could study it. You could go
through those four rules of interpretation and see was there a compelling need,
and did he have to talk about it in the [unclear], and Asanga talked about it, and
then Je Rinpoche talks about it 1900 years later. Personally I don't think so. But
if you say is it possible, I say it's possible. I don't think so. I've heard people say
that they think that. I don't think so. I think you could make a case for it just
being harmful to you. But that's my opinion as a person who's read a lot and
studied a lot and been around a lot of Geshes, I think that the additional desire
required to want to do those things is what harms you. And that's all, that's
would be the main argument. We're going to get to that at the end of tonight.

[student: What [unclear] lama [unclear]]

Well, there's like a {zen e chu way gewa}, well if you want to know a whole list,
it's a long list. But you could say temples, holy places, a dharma center is a....
{zen e chu way gewa} means there's certain virtues you get from physical stuff
which is rare, normally it's a person. But any good done to fix a stupa or to
spend money on a temple, that's all {zen e chu way gewa}. That place is so
important for the ultimate well-being of people, not the temporary well-being,
that it's a very important place. Anything you do for that place is karmically very
powerful. And we're going to get into another list tonight. You'll get more lists
than you want from the Abidharma.

[student: So what are you saying, Michael, that if you spend a lot of money for a
temple to make it beautiful that's great?]

Not beautiful, but functional.

[student: Yeah, but if you look at, I'm sorry, I don't mean to disrespect the Dalai
Lamas' Potala, but it's more than comfortable.] [laughs] [laughter] You see what
I mean?]

That I don't know. The Fifth Dalai Lama, you have to get into his motivation and
he was an incredible man, if you read his book. He sat in the Potala and said "I
own two things in the Potala. I own my {dorje} and my bell. The rest is I don't
know whose. I don't need it, it's not mine. I don't have any claim to it. All I
want to own is these two things.

[student: So for example a powerful object is an organization which feeds the
whole....]

That's a good object, a pretty good object. It's not on the realm of getting out of
suffering. It's the realm of helping suffering people who will suffer more. There's
no ultimate solution. But it's a great thing, you have to do those things. I don't
trust people who say, "Well I'm working on ultimate good. I don't have to do
any good things today, for normal people." It's suspicious. [laughs] yeah....

[student: I was just going to say that it's an example, the scriptural example you
brought up. That's not necessarily physical, but the bringing together of the
Sangha after a split, that's a virtuous...]

It's a great act of truth, it's a big truth, it's a big virtue.

[student: But it's not a physical temple or it's not a Buddha or...]

Oh no, they asked me for other examples, and there's a special category of
physical places that's not as virtuous as helping spread the teachings. But it's
related to that. She asked me for other examples other than temples... We're
going to get a list.

[student: The last class we talked about, about when we do a good deed that
needs to be done with the right reason, with that idea of selflessness, is that
intellectually or...]

No self-nature or selflessness? Do you mean without the feeling of egotism?

[student: Without the idea of... [unclear]]

I like that. Call it no-self-nature so that people don't think it means for non-
selfish reasons.

[student: So is that an intellectual understanding of emptiness or [unclear]]

Intellectually, at our level. If you are who you seem to be, I don't know for sure.
But at our level, definitely intellectual. You start with the intellectual level.

[student: So even if you have to force it...]

By definition you have to force it because you're not used to thinking that way.
And that's been helping me a lot. I was on the bus and I was getting pissed off
with the driver and... [laughter] if you get angry, you just going to get into more
busses like that. And that's wisdom. That's why wisdom is such a big deal in
Buddhism. Wisdom means intelligence that's going to overcome your natural
instincts. There's a big war between what you know and what you learn, and
then what you want to do. It's a big war, that's the classic war, that's the war
between what you've learnt is right to do, beneficial to you, smart to do, and
then what you want to do, that's the big fight, it will be your whole life that you'll
be fighting. Some people just give up. [laughter] Okay...

[silence]

{sape} [repeat] {kepa} [repeat], {sape} [repeat] {kepa} [repeat]. {sape} means
thought, a thought that you have. {kepa} means extraordinary. And the
example in the reading is... don't forget, why are we discussing this?

[student: These are the ones that can give you results in this life.]

Yeah, they can give you a result in this life, they can make the karma so
powerful that you'll see the result in this life. And again I think that tantra is
based on this. You must know about tantra. It's not the tantra in Abidharma.
Abidharma is this little Hinayana thing, not this big Mahayana thing. Ultimately
they're totally in sync with each other. You have to learn how. {Sampa}.. So the
example in the scripture is of a person who was the eunuch of a king and he saw
500... I forget, cows, bulls being led to be castrated. And he had pity on them
and he, this is very common in scripture, he bought them and then he released
them, or he paid the guy not to do that, and as a result of that, his organ was
restored in his life. [laughter] That's the story. It's true. [laughter]

[student: [unclear]]

That's great, did I have a {unclear} in this class. I love that. That's great. That
means you're a real Buddhist. Did I really know it? No. I can't say I do.

[student: Michael, how can you say that the fact [unclear] can make a difference,
I mean...]

He didn't want them to go through the pain.

[student: Ah, the pain, okay.]

He had this great feeling of empathy, compassion, and that was so powerful in
his own life, his sex change, that he got his organ back. So that's the example, the
two examples are parallel. And then sex changes are all over ancient Buddhist
scriptures. Like in the monks' vows there's.. you know, what happens if you
change your sex and things like that. It is common in ancient times. There
would be things that would happen. It's all over the scriptures.

[student: Of course in those days they could fly and dematerialize...] [laughter]
[and a few other things, right?]

Yeah, but it's not such an extraordinary thing. In scripture it's mentioned a lot.
You change your sex so many times in one life, can you still be a monk?
[laughter] No, really.

[student: Did they have sex changes then?]

Obviously they did because they discuss it a lot.

[student: But not in the way we think of it today?]

[unclear]

I don't know. I think it was some sort of natural experience. Okay, so those two
are hard, but you can think up your own examples. I think that as you get older,
as you get to my age, you can see... if you study karma a lot, you can start to see
some correlation between what you did as a young person and what you're
getting now. You start to see some correlation.

[student: Can you give us another example of [unclear]]

[student: Michael, would the story of [unclear] and Maitreya be an example
[unclear]]

Yeah. That's pretty much the whole hope that we have for getting out of
suffering in this life through the secret teachings. Exactly that.

[cut]

The roots are there. It tells you how it works. That's cool. [laughs]

[student: So what you're really talking about is Boddhichitta?]
No, it could be any... again, it could be negative, too.            It could be an
extraordinary fury... In this case...]

[student: Does that mean emotion?]

Yeah, yeah.

[student: So it's really the same thing as the...]

Yeah, they're not contradictory, they don't contradict each other. That emotion,
any strong emotion would make it sure to give a future result. A really strong
emotion, a really evil or pure emotion, would give it results in this life.

[student: By the way, it's only discernible by an omniscient being, right? I mean,
someone could have had a very strong emotion, something very unusual could
have happened and it may or may not have been through an act that they did in
this life. We don't have to be omniscient to know that?]

Well, you can't reap a seed... Can we perceive the laws of karma? Not in a direct
way. But hopefully, by the end of the course you'll have some intellectual
understanding of a good psychological argument, conceptual argument, of why
it should be true. And then you can use some reason, you can use logic.

[student: But is it still possible to do something very powerful and to get a result
that you thought was from that powerful deed?]

[And it's not exactly from that deed? That's true, sure, because we're limited....]

[student: And the only one who can know that for sure is an omniscient being?]

That's true.

[student: But it does seem, I mean, when you observe life, that you do see that
happening with people or in peoples' lives, you see that they did something and
you see years later...]

You see it over and over throughout... My father, I don't know, was it the result
of that. He was a great hunter his whole life. We grew up... he took us out
when we were 4 years old, by 12 we were shooting rifles and then later in his life
he had to have these horrible surgeries, they cut just like a fish, starting down
here and working up... [laughs] Even in that time, I mean, something's going on
[laughs]. That's the way he used to cut the fish all his life. Do I know? No.

[student: I know from observing my mother, I could see how she treated people
when she was young and healthy, and then later, when she was old and weak,
these people got back at her. And you could really... they certainly think of
her.... Certainly looks that way.]

You know yourself things that you've done karmically, and I think you start to
see results as you grow older, it takes some time. {Chan ge [unclear] Dorje} in
his tantric commentary describes it very well. If we ever get to that point....
Okay, I'm going to give you four objects that are special...

[student: So those are just those two, those are the only two...]

Yeah, either the object or the thought. It's got to be powerful enough that you're
going to see a result in this life. And Fran asked me for some special objects.
Your reading gives them, I'll go over them with you. There's 4 that they
mention in the reading. What if somebody who just came out of the Abidharma
School calls cessation meditation, it's a meditation which is very close to Nirvana,
it resembles Nirvana closely.

[student: Is this a distinctive object?]

Yeah. I'm discussing 4 distinctive objects. Giving you examples. These are the
Abidharma's own examples.         A person who just came out of that deep
meditation where he was almost, very similar to... now anything that you do to
help or harm that person is an extraordinary karma that you will see the results
of in this life.

[student: You reach Nirvana, or the experience is like Nirvana?]

The experience is very close to Nirvana. And according to the Abidharma
School, and that's a long story, what goes on in a cessation meditation, it's a long
story.

[student: Right after they came out of it, or for the rest of their lives.]

Right after they came out of it. According to this section of the Abidharma, the
first few moments are crucial, because they are new, they are fresh, and it's more
potent than later on. So what they're talking about, and they explain why in the
reading, it's that the first few moments are karmically more powerful.

[student: What if you don't recognize them?]

[laughs] This is the old argument that you'd better not back talk with anyone,
they might be a Boddhisattva.

[student: So this is a distinctive object in this case?]

Yeah, that's the first example given in the Abidharma. The second example is
called "immeasurable love." They have a {sem ye shi} in the Abidharma. They
have the four immeasurables. They are not the same as the Mahayana in their
definitions. They have the same name, they're a little bit different. And they
don't define them the same. That's a long story.

[student: [unclear]]

In Mahayana it means the objects are immeasurable, having love towards all
sentient beings. That's the main meaning of immeasurable. Someone who just
came out of that deep meditation has that feeling. Someone who just went
through that meditation or actually achieved that feeling... and then you yell at
him. [laughter] [laughs] Something like that. That's supposed to be potent, very
potent. They also give the example...this is another example of number 2... is a
person who's in that deep meditation that we call "No Mind", right? It's not that
they have no mind, it's that their mind is almost shut down. Why are these two
karmas so powerful? Because those people are almost free of what? I mean, a
person who's totally obsessed with love is a person whose mind is almost shut
down, cannot have normal mental afflictions. These people are almost free.
When they come out, for 10 minutes or so, they are among the few beings in the
world who don't have anger, jealousy, hatred, desire. And then you do
something good or bad to them, it's very powerful karma. Example number 3.
Someone who just came out of the path of seeing, someone who has just seen
selflessness directly, just came out of that meditation. [laughs] Now he can read
your mind at that point. For a while, he can read your mind.

[student: Michael, if you know someone who can read peoples' minds, then are
they....]

You should ask them to meet the lottery director. [laughs] [laughter]
[student: Michael, are you saying only for the first time or any time that
someone has these experiences?]

These all refer to right after they came out. They say "newly", which normally
means for the first time. You only go through the direct reception once.

[student: I thought you go back into the experience of direct emptiness...]

Then you're already on {gom la}.

[student: So it's "newly" for all three?]

Yeah, so far. Fresh, fresh out of... they're still like... they don't have anything to
do with jealousy, haven't asserted themselves again. And for that person, he's
gotten rid of those two main afflictions, remember what they are? A person
who's just seen emptiness directly, or selflessness, and has come out, now he's
totally abandoned two kinds of bad thoughts, can never have two things again.

[student: [unclear]]

That's a little bit different. But he can never doubt Buddhism again.         He will
never doubt Buddhism again. He saw the Buddha directly.

[student: He saw the Aryan truths?]

He saw. You can shoot him, you can beat him on the head, you can give him
any argument in the world, he doesn't care, he knows what he saw. That's just...
so he can never have it again. So he can never have doubts about Buddhism.
That's called {tetsum}, that kind of doubt, that Buddhism is correct and that it's
true, you can't have it again. And that's a very nice feeling.

[student: In this life or in any other subsequent life?]

As a young child in a future life he may not be assertive, but as soon as he's old
enough to think clearly, that will reassert itself. So he's... it's a very comforting
feeling that the scriptures are correct, totally correct. Just do what they say and
you'll be all right. That's just knowledge, knowledge. So that's the first one. The
second one is the intellectual belief in self-existence. You know, what you said
about believing what he sees? He'll never believe it again. He knows that his
perceptions are mistaken. And he'll never believe them again.

[student: So someone who's just had a direct experience of emptiness for the first
time, or anytime?]

Yeah, yeah, they're talking for the first time. He's just special, very special, he's a
new stream-enterer. Then the last example is {unclear}, which is what? An Arhat,
a person who's just reached the level of an Arhat. And obviously he's special.
He's gotten rid of his mental afflictions permanently. Would we know these
people? Would we recognize them? I don't know. But those are the four
examples from the Abidharma.

[student: You might run into one of them on the subway.]

You never know!       You've got to be careful.     You've got to be very careful.
[laughter]

[student: Are you saying that these objects are more powerful than say, Arhats
[unclear]]

Yeah, yeah.

[student: What's [unclear]]

I don't know. Read the reading. It's not a totally clear example. I could look it
up in some commentaries. I think the main thing is that they are fresh, and it's
just that it's a new member of a group, and it's like yelling at the latest person to
win a special award, just while they're fresh.]

[student: In a way they are vulnerable, or something.]

It's not that they're vulnerable. It's that they are very special now, they're new
members of an exclusive class and I think it's just how special... you know,
they've just reached a threshold after billions of lives, countless lives. Just
reached this threshold, just once, they've just become special, they're very
special. Okay, have a break and then I'll try to finish....[unclear] At the end of
your reading I couldn't resist putting in, counted up to three I think, {namen
chenmo}, Tsongkapa, on the karmic results, because it's fantastic. And I'm going
to give you the three karmic results according to Jetsun Kampa. Jetsun Kampa
has culled this not just from the Abidharma but from... his knowledge of
scripture is unmatched, and he was a master of everything, so he's written on
commentaries on every major subject. So {namen}.... you know already. I just
want you to get a feel for... it's three different karmic results. So we say that
karmic result is not enough to translate these things. And I'll show you the
differences and you'll see, they're all karmic results. The first one is called
{namen}. That means a "ripening". And then Jetsun Kampa goes through the
ripenings for the ten bad deeds and he says that it depends on your motivation
at the time, you know, how strong was your desire, how strong was your anger,
how strong was your emotion and how bad was the deed. He says if you do a
great killing, a very serious killing, then the {namen} is a birth in the house. So
that gives you a feeling of what {namen} does. If you do a bad deed with like a
medium level, medium emotion, medium object, medium kind of killing, the
result is....

[student: What do you mean "medium killing?]

"Medium" means...[laughter] it wasn't totally premeditated with pure anger, it
was partly premeditated with a kind of anger, all of those factors were sort of
medium strength. And then when you do a very light one, like involuntary
manslaughter, the {namen} would be an animal. So that's a {namen}. These are
three kinds of karmic results.

[student: This applies to insects, any kind of being?]

Yeah, yeah. But not as serious, an insect is not as serious as a human. I mean, to
kill an insect is not as serious as to kill a human.

[student: But I thought it expanded the 7 days to be the equivalent of becoming
human...]

Well, it's a long story. But I... basically you have to think of the separation
between realms. It depends on how close that person is to getting out of
suffering. And bugs will never, in this life, understand enough to get out of this
life.

[student: Are you saying that {namen} is one of the three kinds of karma, or are
you saying that strong, medium and light are...]

Yeah, they're all kinds of {namens}. So a {namen} from a very heavy bad deed is
hell. A {namen} from a medium bad deed is to be born as an insatiable spirit.
And then the {namen} of a lighter bad deed is to be born in an animal realm.
And Jetsun Kampa says, one sutra reverses the last two. But you don't have to
worry about that.

[student: What?]

That's the kind of person he was. He wants you to know that one sutrist says a
medium deed leads you to an animal, and a light one leads you to an insatiable
spirit. So that's the {namen}, all right? Second one is called {gyu ten}. {gyu ten}
itself has two kinds.

[student: What does it mean?]

{gyu ten} means "corresponding." "Corresponding" means there's a similarity
between what you did and what you got back. And the clue to remember here
is the word "personal" and I'll get back to that. It's a personal corresponding
result. For some reason it's very personal. I'm going to talk about it.

[student: You mean between the deed and it's result?]

Yeah. There's a corresponding quality, there's a similarity between...what do
you call that?

[student: Correspondence?]

Like a correspondence.

[student: Concordance?]

Yeah, concordance. {gno wa} means experience and it means you get some kind
of similar experience to what you did. So in the case of killing, in your next life
the connection between {namen} and {gyu ten} is... it's always this phrase...
listen... If by chance you were born a human, finally, then you would have a
{gyu ten}, one of these {gyu tens} would happen to you. So what a normal
{namen} is that you have to go down into one of the three lower realms? That's
what {namen} means, that's the ripening result. But if by good luck you got out
of there, if by some chance you got out of them finally, then you would have a
{gyu ten} problem. [laughs] That kind of karmic result would come to you. So
what do you guess it is by killing?
[student: You get killed?]

Your life is very short. Or you get sick easily, things like that.

[student: That's not a corresponding result.]

It's similar to killing, no? That your life is shortened and you don't live very long,
you're always sick, things like that.

[student: What are you calling this first one?]

I'll call this the corresponding result of a personal experience, how's that? It has
to do with your own life. From stealing, you never have enough things, you're
always short, you're always broke. [laughs] That's stealing. From sexual
misconduct, people are always after your wife or husband, you have trouble
keeping your wife.

[student: You mean like adultery?]

Loyalty.

[student: Not necessarily adultery?]

Well, they say it that way. General result is that your partner...there's a lot of
competition for your partner and sometimes you lose them. You have problems
with your relationships.

[student: Michael, does {yong wa} refer to the experience of killing, or to a
shortened life?]

The experience of you having a short life. It's the resulting experience. And I
really urge you to read Jetsun Kampa's... the ten that he lists. He didn't make
them up himself. They're in the sutras. And they're very interesting because
now you can work backwards. I mean, it explains why some people are healthy
and some people aren't and why some people have good marriages and some
people don't have good marriages. I mean, it explains practically everything
about your personal life on the basis of those ten non-virtues. If you have a
problem with desire in this life... my problem is desire more than anger. I'm not
angry. I do have desire. And a lot of people are the opposite. So that's because
in your last life you did 8 or 9. You coveted other people's things, or you wanted
to hurt other people. To have that kind of personality is a karmic result, that's a
{nyo wan ge tu}. Your personality is determined by that karma. That's very
interesting. The other one is {jepa}.

[silence]

{jepa gyu ten} means similar activities, similar actions, and what it refers to is
that...you know, you meet people... I remember a kid when I was growing up.
His big thrill was to take a BB gun and we would go out and he'd look for nests
and kill little birds. He had this love for it. In Tibetan they call it {ying ying}. He
had this kind of pleasure about it. And that's a {jepa gyu ten}, from having killed
in his past life. In other words it's the habit of doing that thing, it's the attraction
to doing that deed.

[student: Can it be positive also?]

All these can be good, sure. You know, some people just by nature like to give
away money, things... that's a {jepa gyu ten}. There's no part of your personality
which is not a {gyu ten}. It's very interesting. You can identify all the parts of
your personality.

[student: Are you saying that from your past karma, you will have both similar
experiences and similar habits as results of past lives?]

Right. Similar things personally will happen to you, and also you will enjoy... it
also puts another kind of karmic result...it gives you a propensity for that kind of
activity. You are attracted by that kind of activity, you tend towards that kind of
activity, what do you call it?

[student: Gravitate towards...]

Yeah, gravitate is great. You gravitate towards that kind of activity. And the last
one, and I think that's your last thing tonight....

[silence]

Say {dang de} [repeat] {dang de} [repeat]. {dang de} means an environmental
karmic result, in your environment, in the place that you live, in the world that
you live in. And they're very beautiful. Tsongkapa takes them out of the sutras,
you can read them, they're in the reading. The first half of the reading is very
difficult Abidharma stuff. Skip to the second half. Jetsun Kampa had a gift, and
he describes it very nicely. He says if you live in a world where there are a lot of
wars going on, if you live in a world where there's a lot of chaos, a lot of violence
going on in your world, it's because you, personally, killed things in your past
life. So now it's referring to your environment. Your environment is dangerous.
The muggers in New York are the fault of your harming he even mentions
muggers [laughs] are the results of bad deed number 9. Yeah.

[student: Theoretically, most of the world is full of war and there's a great deal
of violence going on. Does that mean that most people did harm?]

Yeah, most people who are sharing that perception together have killed people
in the past, or they enjoyed seeing other people get in trouble. And that's the
karmic result. You read the New York Times... that should have been the
meditation actually... every single headline there, every single header is a result
of your personal karma, for you. If taxes went up, it's because you stole. If a
bridge is closed, it's because you spoke harsh words. And then there's a whole
list like that. And they all make sense when you study the Mind-Only School,
okay? When you get to that.

[student: But wouldn't you have to say that there were other contributing
causes... like everybody else's karma?]

If they have to experience that bridge, if they have to get stuck in traffic because
of that bridge, yeah, absolutely.

[student: All the other people who got stuck in traffic contribute, I mean...]

Would it have happened if one of them hadn't been there? It still would have
happened for the other people.

[student: So Michael, is that the way you experience it, or is it the way it is?]

We're going to see later that there's no [unclear]. So that's, you know, it sounds
wild. You read the correspondences. I think from sexual misconduct you live in
a world where there is a lot of stink... if you go to India, you know, piss and
poop smells, everywhere, everywhere you go, you can't get away from it. The
whole country has got this problem. The reason why it rains... how come the
rains fall okay in Thailand and then on the same latitude, a couple hundred miles
over, everyone's starving all the time? Why do people in San Diego live in
luxury and people in Tijuana, you know, a couple of miles away, live in filth?
What causes this? Where does it come from? And it's very interesting. If you
get into it, you realize what made New York the way it is, and [laughs] why do I
live on 39th and 9th? And then when we get to the Mind-Only part you'll
understand why it's plausible, and that it's not just... you know, a lot of Western
history books up until recently would say, "Oh the Buddhists are trying to
explain the world, so they made up this idea of karma to explain why the world
is the way it is. When you get into the psychology of it, and the conceptual
theory of it, you'll be able to accept it. And then every part of your world is a
result of this. It also means that you can purify your world. It's on the basis of
that that you can attain paradise. Because this world is empty. We'll get into
that... because of Emptiness, something nice can happen. But what's going to fill
it in? What's going to paint in the empty canvas? It has to be what?

[student: Your good deeds.]

Your good deeds. People just don't want to hear that. They want to get to a
level of understanding Emptiness, and then they want all the morality scriptures
to go away. [laughs] We did Nagarjuna's letter twenty years ago and sent it to a
famous publisher. He actually wrote us back and said if you cut out the morality
part and submit the Emptiness part... [laughs] they go together. Why would the
Buddha spend 60-70% of the scriptures discussing morality and good deeds if it
wasn't something that related to the Emptiness side?

[prayer]
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HOW KARMA WORKS