ACI 5 «Как работает карма», занятие 8

Class Eight: Cutting Root Virtue; Projecting Karma
November 14, 1994



Say {yeshe ke tsog} [repeat] {tsunam ke tsog} [repeat] {yeshe ke tsog} [repeat].
These are the {tsog me}. They’re very famous. The two collections. The first
one is “collection of merit”. {tsunam} means merit. I remember, we had a friend
at work named Tsunam. That’s what her name means. {tsog} means collection
and {ke} means “of”, so “collection of merit.” It means that basically all the first
four perfections that you work on are {tsunam ke tsog}. What are the first four
perfections? Yeah, giving, morality, patience and effort. Effort which means to
be glad to be doing good things. And generosity...I prefer “giving”, because you
can give protection and things like that. So that’s {tsunam ke tsog}. That’s the
collection of merit. Basically those four, those first four perfections, which are
giving, morality, patience... patience doesn’t mean, well it means not to get
angry. We don’t have a good word in English. It means the ability not to get
angry when the time comes to get angry. Patience is like that. We also say
patience as in waiting for a bus. It’s not the same thing. Patience means when
somebody’s yelling in your face and you don’t react, that’s the third perfection.
And fourth is effort, which is to take joy in doing something good. And really,
effort can go either way. Effort can swing this way or this way, effort is needed
for both these. Therefore {yeshe ke tsog} is which of the perfections? We used
up the first four, right? [laughs]

[student: The last two.]

[laughs] The last two. We’re sharp tonight. [laughs] [laughter] You’ll are as
sleepy as I am. So {yeshe} means “wisdom” and {tsog} means “collection”.
“Collection of wisdom”. What it means is that you keep piling up these two
things as you practice. All right? For the Buddha it was {jun jing mato, jun jing
duto, jun jing dutong}, seventy-five thousand kalpas, and seventysix thousand
kalpas and then seventy-seven thousand kalpas. He finished these two in those
three periods, all right? [laughs] Took him jillions of years, okay? And that’s the
two collections. Why are they divided like this? Well, you keep piling up good
deeds and you keep piling up knowledge, basically that. Here you’re piling up
good deeds, in the {tsunam ke tsog}, collection of merit. And then here you’re
piling up knowledge. And they’re not contradictory, I mean, there can be a lot
of knowledge in here and there’s a lot of merit in here.        But generally it’s a
division.

[student: What about the perfection of meditation?]

That’s concentration and it should be called concentration. It goes with {yeshe ke
tsog} because of that thing we talked about so much, your mind has to be in the
form realm for you to see emptiness directly. You need perfect concentration to
see emptiness directly. That’s why they come together.
[student: So knowledge in this sense means concentration and wisdom?]

Yeah, the last two perfections together, mainly. If you’re in a debate ground and
you don’t say “mainly” you’re in trouble, okay? And {tsundru}, “effort”, can
swing either way. Obviously to take joy in being good is necessary in both
{tsogs}, in both collections. So what does {tsunam ke tsog} cause? What is it’s
result? You can correlate the two bodies of the Buddha to these two {tsogs}.

[student: [unclear]]

Yeah. So the {tsunam ke tsog} mainly causes the form body. What is the form
body? It’s the physical body that the Buddha has. Either the one that’s in his
paradise, enjoying himself, or the one that comes to this planet to teach people.
Those two. That’s all caused by the {tsunam ke tsog}. Right? That’s the special
cause of the {tsunam ke tsog}, his form body, his physical body.

[student: Did you say it was a cause of {tsunam ke tsog}?]

No, {tsunam ke tsog} causes that. If you pile up good deeds, you’re piling them
up as you practice, it took the Buddha 210, 5 times 20,221 thousand kalpas.
[laughs] Countless kalpas. 60 zeroes on the end of that, okay? And {yeshe ke
tsog}, what does that cause? The dharma body, the dharma body of the Buddha.
The dharma body of the Buddha has two parts. One is his emptiness, okay? And
the other is his mind, his knowledge. And that’s....

[student: Is there any difference between those two?]

Oh, big difference. Mind is a positive thing and emptiness is a negative thing.
Mind is a living thing, emptiness is not a living thing. Stuff like that. You see the
Dharmakaya and you see this... you see the dharma body and you see the form
body just after you perceive emptiness directly. Just after you come out of the
{tong long} experience. First part of the {tong long} experience. When you come
down, you see these two things directly. You see Buddhas and you see their real
nature which until then you’ve never seen. It’s very difficult to conceive of their
nature and at that point you can see it. That’s why you lose doubt at that time.
By the way, then you realize that every single painting you’ll ever see takes on a
totally different importance for you, because you know that there’s a real person
like that. I mean, until now they’re just kind of nice paintings. After that point
you know that it’s like a picture of something, a photograph of someone who
really exists, and then they become very important for you. Yeah?

[student: You said that the dharma body is emptiness and mind and that the
mind is knowledge. Isn’t wisdom the emptiness?]

Wisdom is the knowledge that understands emptiness.

[student: Oh, and the other one’s the actual...]

One is an object of the wisdom and one is the wisdom itself.

[student: So the dharma body has emptiness?]

Everything has emptiness. But the emptiness of a dharma body is a very special
emptiness so it rates a separate kaya.

[student: So how is it different than a...?]

When they say it’s {gnana dharma kaya}, when they divide it into wisdom
dharma body, then the dharma part is emptiness. And your Buddha nature is
the thing that will become that emptiness, and people don’t understand that.
And we’ve got to study Buddha nature someday, it’s a long subject, I’m not
going to get into it tonight. Anyway, to put it simply, these are the good deeds
that allow you to look like a Buddha later, and these are the good deeds that
allow you to think like a Buddha later. All right? {gesa chepa}, the concept of
losing your most basic virtue, {gesa chepa} is a nasty, horrible subject. It’s not a
pleasant subject tonight. How do you destroy the roots of your virtue? What
actions can cause you to destroy the most basic virtues you have? And those
virtues that get destroyed are these, {tsunam ke tsog}. So the concept of
destroying your most basic virtues is very important in Hinayana and in
Mahayana, it comes in both. And in the Abidharma, this comes next. In your
course of study, this is what would come next, the discussion in the Abidharma,
which is the first discussion of how you actually wipe out your most basic
virtues. [laughs] I think that’s important to know, right? What bad deeds can
you do to wipe out your most basic virtue? Very important concept. And the
virtue that you’re wiping out, if someone should ask you on a homework, is this
one. This is what basic virtue means. It means your whole piled-up virtue that
you’ve been working on for so long.

[student: Can you not then lose your understanding of selflessness once you
have it?]

We’ll talk about it. Mainly what they’re talking about here, and they talk about
the good karma that you’ve collected, the good karma that you’ve been piling
up, that you hope is going to make you into a Buddha eventually, are there any
special kinds of things that can destroy it? Just obliterate it? The sutra says
“obliterate, wipe out, destroy.” You know there’s this whole long list of the
original sutra that explains this, this whole long list. Somebody, {unclear}, was
doing prostrations at a stupa and in these stories, if you get down on the ground,
every particle of dust covered by your body, you get that many huge virtues.
So he got up and the Buddha said “Oh, you’ve got a lot of virtue,” because he did
some great virtue, you know. Then he went somewhere and he got angry at
another Boddhisattva and he wiped all of it out, he just wiped it clean. And the
Buddha said, “Oh, you just wiped clean all that virtue you did.” [laughs] All
right? And we’ll talk about how it is. So that’s the idea of wiping out your most
basic virtues. You have to talk about the person who can do it, and what can do
it.

[silence]

[student: You’re talking about destroying karma here, right?]

Exactly. We’re having a karma class.

[student: Which must be the counterpart to purification?]

Oh, we might get to that tonight. But that should be a big concern to you. It’s
nice to know all about karma but if you don’t know that you could wipe it all out
[laughs], then you didn’t study the whole subject. {lok tha} Say {lok tha}.
[repeat. {lok tha} means wrong view. {lok} means “wrong”, {tha} means
“view”, {lok tha} means wrong view. But the word {lok}, and you should
understand the word {lok} implies a diametric opposite. Something exists and
you think it doesn’t exist. So {lok tha} is focussed on something which is true,
something which really exists, and {lok tha} think... what?

[student: That it doesn’t exist.]

Yeah, but not just that. {lok tha} says it doesn’t exist, I mean classic {lok tha}
Abidharma way. It’s looking at things that really exist and says those don’t exist.
What do you think would be very effective {lok tha} to wipe out karma?

[student: To believe there’s no karma.]

Yeah, to believe there’s no such thing as the laws of karma. That’s the classic {lok
tha}. That’s the {lok tha} that wipes out your good karma.

[student: Why would it do that?]

Well, as a side, it’s not immediate, I mean... it’s a long story. But anyway, I think
principally because you then wouldn’t do any good deeds based on a knowledge
of karma.

[student: She could be doing random good deeds.]

You would be doing random good deeds. But apparently it has the power to
wipe out even the good deeds you’ve done before. What’s the... how does it
work? We’ll talk about it. There’s a long list of ways of how it works and why it
works.]

[student: Michael, let’s say you stopped believing that karma is bad, but you still
believe that you should be a good human being, that you should behave
correctly. Does that mean you’re wiping it? I mean, because on the one hand,
intellectually it doesn’t work, but yet you’re acting as though it works, but not...
you’re doing it....]

We’ll talk about it. I think it will come. If it doesn’t come, let me know. We’re
going to talk about it when you read how to reconnect your virtue. Actually the
word means more like “disconnect” or “sever” rather than lose your basic
virtue. The word {jepa} means “to cut,” “to slice.” And then when you get it
back, there is a way to get it back, and that’s called reconnecting.

[student: Like [unclear]]
[laughs] Yeah, yeah, yeah. All right? So {lok tha}. {lok tha} is looking at what?

[student: Looking at things opposite....]

Things that exist and thinking that they don’t exist. That’s the classic {lok tha}.
And here it’s focussed on the laws of karma, or it’s focussed on Buddhahood
itself, saying there’s no such thing as Buddhahood. Okay? Buddhahood does
exist. {lok tha} says Buddhahood doesn’t exist. This is classic. The very very
classic case in our country among people we know... they practice Buddhism for
a while, they try Tibetan Buddhism for a while, it doesn’t sit with them or they
lose interest or they want to do something that Tibetan Buddhism says they can’t
do, or something like that, or they just.... something happens in their mind, and
then after that they say, ah, that’s all garbage. That’s {lok tha}. That’s classic
{geta jepa}, that’s a very very dangerous, and very... you know, it would be
possible for any of us, I think. It’s something that we could do at this point.
Once you’ve learnt, you’re kind of in trouble. Once you’ve learnt a little
Buddhism, then if you reject it, if you just say oh, I used to go to those classes, it’s
all garbage, that’s a classic {lok tha}. That’s really the one that does the {geta
jepa). Yeah?

[student: Why is it bad [unclear]?]

We’ll talk about it. I’m absolutely not saying you shouldn’t question, absolutely
not saying that. The Buddha was adamant about it. Said you must question. But
this has to be a total rejection. We’ll talk about why. It’s all garbage, you know,
it has to be something like that to work as a {geta jepa}. If you want to do a
good {geta jepa}, don’t just reject part of Buddhism, don’t just reject the parts
you can’t take right now, or don’t just doubt this or anything like that. Reject the
whole schmiel. Then you’ve got {geta jepa}. You have to reject it. Actively.
Question?

[student: The scriptures talk about certain specific conditions, circumstances that
would add up to a classical...]

That’s a good point. I’ll give you a second one.

[student: Michael, when you said it must be a total rejection, are you saying it
must be a total rejection for it to be considered wrong view?]
The {lok tha} which can destroy your {geta}, the wrong view which can destroy
your virtue root, has to be a total rejection, Can’t be like a doubt or something
like that. It can’t be skepticism. It’s a rejection. It’s to say this is all bullshit, I
don’t accept any of it. I mean, if you have trouble accepting certain parts of
Buddhism now, which I know everyone normally does, that’s not {lok tha}. And
it’s very very very very important that you store those in a cabinet called “I’m
not sure about those yet.” And you don’t say: “I don’t accept those.” When you
talk to your friends, and when you even think in your own mind, say I heard
Rinpoche say that, I heard Roach say that, I really can’t buy it right now, but I’ll
put it in that cabinet of things that I’m going to check out some day. I don’t
reject it, and I don’t act on it now, and I don’t follow it now. I keep it there in a
group of stuff that I’m not quite sure about, I want to hear more about it, I’ll try
to decide later, but don’t reject it. Yeah?

[student: For it to be wrong view, is it enough to just reject the idea of karma
without having any alternative to embrace and go towards? In a way you have
half of a wrong view, you’re not thinking of something else to replace it, know
what I mean? You don’t have a view that’s wrong. You just say “I reject this.”]

You don’t have to have an alternate viewpoint which is contradictory. You just
say you don’t believe it, you say, “I’m sure that that doesn’t exist.” Here’s the
second way to lose your {geta}. This is presented in the Mahayana scriptures,
specifically in the Madhyamika scriptures by Shantideva and by Chandrakirti
and I thought you might as well know it. It’s not mentioned in the Abidharma
presentation.     Say {kongtro}. [repeat. {kongtro} repeat.     {kongtro} means
“anger.” And if you ever read Shantideva, you know what he’s talking about.
The structure of the Madhyamika scriptures, the one that we study in the
monastery, Chandrakirti’s famous work, don’t get him mixed up with
Dharmakirti, okay? We studied Dharmakirti last course. I used to get them
mixed up all the time so I can tell you. Chandrakirti is the great Madhyamika
scholar and he designed his book based on the six perfections, his book follows
the six perfections. Why? Because he’s talking about the ten Boddhisattva
Bhumis, the ten levels that a Boddhisattva goes through as he starts to reach
enlightenment. And six of those levels, Boddhisattva levels, relate to the six
perfections. Because at those particular levels, you are gaining an extraordinary
ability to practice that perfection. That’s why everybody concentrates on the
sixth chapter. Why? I mean, the sixth chapter is ninety percent of his book.
That’s the one about emptiness, right? But most people don’t realize that the
Madhyamika scriptures, that the first five perfections are there, they’re just little
tiny chapters at the beginning. But when he reaches chapter three, perfection
number three, which is what?

[student: Patience.]

Patience, not getting angry. The Boddhisattva level there is called {wa jepa}. {wa
jepa} means “make light”, “light maker”. And you can’t reach that level until
you perfect the ability not to get angry when the time comes that you should get
angry. And you know, when the circumstances are such that, you know,
somebody’s really pushing your buttons and you reach your limit, and then if
you don’t get angry then, you’ve just practiced the third perfection. If you get
an extraordinary ability to do that, you’ve reached the third Boddhisattva level.
Yeah?

[student: Is there some distinction in anger?        I mean, when you say when
somebody...]

We’re going to talk about it right now, okay? Classically, this anger should be at
a Boddhisattva, the one that can {geta jepa}, the one that can destroy your most
basic virtues, should be focussed on a Boddhisattva.

[student: What do you mean by it should be focussed on a Boddhisattva?]

You should be getting pissed off at a Boddhisattva.

[laughter]

[student: What’s {kongtro) again?]

That’s anger. And these are the two things that can cut your most basic virtues.
This is what is presented in the Abidharma reading, this one’s concentrated on in
the Madhyamika scriptures. But these are the two things which can wipe out
your whole storehouse of good deeds that you’ve been working on all this time.
You become a Buddhist, you get serious, you really want to be a good person,
you start trying, you build it up, and then you get... one of these comes into your
mind and zoom! It’s just a big eraser. It’s a big pencil eraser that wipes it all out.
You go back to square one.
[student: So since you don’t know who is a Boddhisattva, you may do this on a
regular basis?]

Ah, beautiful, beautiful. That’s exactly what they say in the scriptures. Since you
don’t know who’s a Boddhisattva, everyone in this room could be a
Boddhisattva for all I know...]

[student: Wonderful! So all the work you’ve done all these millions of years,
wiped out?]

There’s a couple of, what do you call it?

[student: Extenuating circumstances?]

[laughs] [laughter]

There are extenuating circumstances. I mean, they say... the main scripture says
it doesn’t matter whether you think he is or not. The identification part doesn’t
play a very big role here. [laughs] And it doesn’t matter whether you have a
good reason or not. It says those two things. Those two things do not much
play a role here.

[student: Does it matter how much you express it? Let’s say you’re feeling
angry but you hold it in?]

It’s much better if you don’t express it.      And it’s really bad if you have it.
[laughs]

[student: If you have it, but you don’t express it, you still get bad karma?]

Yeah....

[student: So you might as well punch him and feel good.]

[laughs] [laughter]

{lok tha}, {lok tha}. [laughs] [laughter]

It’s not funny, you know, it’s a way to lose [unclear].

[student: You couldn’t apply the same reasoning of the four karmic paths?]

They say, by the way, if you want to hear the bad news, {kechigma [unclear]}.
The ratio is instant to kalpa. The ratio is instant to kalpa. One instant of this
anger wipes out a kalpa...a hundred kalpas.

[student: When directed at a Boddhisattva or anybody?]

Boddhisattva.

[student: Say something more about it.]

[laughs] I don’t want to talk any more about it. It’s so depressing.

[student: You said it didn’t have to be....]

They say in the scriptures, and I can show you, that the role of identification, in
other words, realizing that he is a Boddhisattva first of all, and secondly, of
having some justification, are irrelevant, mostly, in this case.

[student: So the four karmic paths don’t apply here?]

They do, but what they’re saying is that the one about the [sheep?], the one
about the object, is so extraordinary, that it outshines the others.

[student:   What kind of justification does one have to get angry at a
Boddhisattva?]

Well let’s say that he... as a method, he punches you in the head, that’s a better
reason than if he were serving you or something.

[student: See what I mean? What kind of Boddhisattva would punch somebody
in the head and force him to go to hell for a long long time?]

I don’t know. Maybe he knows something that I don’t know. Or maybe you’re
tired or something. Know what I mean?                 That’s a justification....that’s a
circumstance, it’s kind of a justification. If you’re very tired and you get angry at
someone, it’s a little bit better than if you weren’t tired, if you were all fresh and
you get angry at somebody. I mean, if you were tired because you were taking
care of your kids or something and then you get angry at someone, that’s a little
bit of a justification. That’s what he’s saying.

[student: Then it seems like there’s a very large responsibility on the part of
Boddhisattvas to not get people angry or stir up their emotions?]
Shantideva gets into that a lot. He gets into a lot about the responsibility, your
responsibility of not setting up circumstances where people around you can
collect bad karma towards you. That’s true. Shantideva talks a lot about that. I
think my boss also used to say—don’t leave the diamonds around on the tables
because somebody with a weaker will than yours could pick one up and steal it.
To you it’s no temptation, but you’re not being fair to those other people. You
have to put them away nicely because it’s not fair to those other people who
might want to take some home, you know. Like that. Yeah?

[student: Why aren’t we supposed to get angry at a Boddhisattva?]

Oh, we have long stories about that. It’s the extraordinary object principle,
right? Someone who just came out of a high state, he’s closer to being
someone... it’s like breaking the last vial of AIDS antidote in the world. He’s
rare, he’s going to help a lot of people and here’s this last bottle of AIDS
medicine in the world, someone just invented it and he died and you got the last
bottle and you just throw it away.]

[student:   Yeah, but you’re assuming that your anger will affect this
Boddhisattva, which most likely it won’t.]

No, no, no, not that it affects him.

[student: So why would it make a difference to this Boddhisattva?            This
Boddhisattva is in another world, in a way.]

Not like that, you can help him in his work or you can hurt him in his work. You
can bother a Boddhisattva. The Dalai Lama... you can bother him.

[student: But Anita’s point is that...]

I know, I know, it’s not hurting him.

[student: Exactly.]

[student: So therefore it can’t hurt anyone else, so what difference does it make
in impact?]

He’s such a holy object. If Jesus walked into the room and you spit on him,
that’s just different, that’s just a different thing... he’s just so important.

[student: I don’t know, Michael, whether this kind of reverence for this object is
coming from a social culture... you know, in the olden times old people were
supposed to be respected. How do you know?]

No, no, the point is that he`s not special because he’s old. He’s special because he
can help...

[student: Then how do you know that this is not because of that?]

It doesn’t make logical sense. This person is special because he can help so many
people.

[student: Doesn’t it also have to do with the conditions that you’re setting up in
your own life? For your own good?]

That could be true too. I mean, it’s close to a {lok tha} to get angry with a
Boddhisattva. It’s close to saying I don’t believe in Buddhahood, I don’t see why
this guy’s so special, just because he’s getting close to Buddhahood, who cares.
That would be a kind of {lok tha}.

[student: So when they talk about an instant of anger destroying your collection
of merit, they’re not talking about just getting angry at normal persons?]

Well, they say by extension you shouldn’t get angry. They say that’s just normal
anger... I mean, if I’m going to be totally honest with you, the scripture says....
shall I tell you or not?

[laughter]

A Boddhisattva to a Boddhisattva.

[student: A Boddhisattva to a Boddhisattva?]

The classic classic classic {kongtro} is a Boddhisattva getting mad at a
Boddhisattva. And you can see why that would be really bad. And it’s worse for
a... and it’s worse to get mad at a higher Boddhisattva.          When a lesser
Boddhisattva gets mad at a higher Boddhisattva.... it’s a long story. Anyway,
then the scripture goes on to say that it applies to all of us towards anybody.
Strong feelings of anger do have in everybody the function of wiping out... and
you know, you put up with somebody for a year and finally you blow up one
day, and even in the non-karma world, you’ve ruined your relationship for
maybe years. You’ve just finally cracked, finally tell him what you feel and then
for a year you can’t get close to him again. You know that. All that good will
that you carefully tended over the months you just screwed up in one minute.

[student: Wasn’t anger defined as not like your normal or chomp-you anger,
but really hatred?]

[laughter]

No, no. In this case, they’re talking about the perfection. The perfection means
really just to get angry at somebody else. It also could be anger at an inanimate
object. If you stub your toe, or if you curse the traffic or New York or....

[student: You know his Holiness was talking....]

[student: {kongtro} for cursing the traffic?]

Yeah.

[laughter]

Yes! It’s ignorant, it’s stupid, it’s ignorant anger.

[student: I know Michael, but the traffic is not a Boddhisattva.]

I’m saying that it is a kind of {kongtro} to get angry at the traffic.



[student: Remember when His Holiness was talking about this chapter in
Arizona, and he said the translation of anger here really means like hatred-type
anger? Is that what he was talking about?]

I think he was saying the opposite. It could be things that you call dislike. That’s
what we’re trying to say. You can have {kongtro} all day. It’s not that you have
to blow up and scream at somebody. It’s dysfunctional, there’s no function to it.
If you understood the emptiness of the traffic, the last thing you’d want to do is
get mad about it. It’s the same thing as the guy at work. I just didn’t want to get
into that. [laughs] Same result.

[student: What gives anger so much more power than virtue?]

We’ll talk about it. [laughter] We’re going to talk about it today. It doesn’t have
more power. We’ll see there’s kinds of... the Buddha cut off 91,000 countless
kalpas from his {tsok sak} by... he met this Buddha and he jumped around on
one leg for a week and praised him...[laughs]... and he cut off 91,000 countless
kalpas. He made his Buddhahood shorter. He cut off like a 100,000 kalpas. Sixty
zeroes, whatever that it, by this great act of faith. He circled him and he swore
his devotion to him and cut off a lot of.. he shortened the time that it took him to
become a Buddha. There are such things. Strong feelings of faith, like when you
meet the Dalai Lama and you get this, you know, [laughs], [laughter], no that’s a
great... that’s the opposite. You just collected a lot of merit. When you’re happy
about what he’s doing, when you feel joy about what he’s doing.

[student: I was going to ask you that, so if I go, I mean, I’m going to say
something really stupid... if I see the Dalai Lama several times I’m going to...]

I think, you know, our culture... see, that was their culture. But I think in our
culture if you just worshiped him in an intelligent way, like you said, look, this
person, of all the people in the world, this guy is helping so many people. Of all
the people in the world, he’s being so good, he’s so clean, he’s so faultless, he’s
devoted himself to this message that nobody wants to know about anyway.
Know what I mean? It’s very special that there is such a human being in the
world and that people realize... the Nobel Peace Prize and all. Anyway, {lok tha}
and {kongtro} can destroy your {gesa}. Now the Abidharma says, what if the...
what do they call... you know, they have a thing in immigration where they
figured out the characteristics of a person who’s going to be doing....

[student: Profile?]

The profile, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. What’s the profile of a person who’s going
to do this {lok tha}? The Abidharma gets into it. They say what’s the profile,
what are the classic characteristics of a person who’s bound to get {lok tha}? Or
who can even commit {lok tha}? And they say, first of all, it has to be a human
being. Why? In hell, they can’t think a straight thought. They can’t get {lok tha}.
All they can concentrate on... it’s just like when you have a really bad headache,
you know. You’re not going to philosophize when you have a bad backache or
bad headache. Hungry spirits, the same thing. They’re just running after food.
Deities are too happy. It’s really got to be a human being.

[student: Deities are too happy?]

They’re enjoying themselves.

[student: Demigods war with the gods all the time?]

[laughter]

Then they’re miserable and they can’t do wrong view either. So it’s gotta be
someone who has a firm belief... therefore they say, eunuchs can’t get it either.
They say when you make a person an eunuch... when a person loses his sexual
organ, he loses some kind of... we would call it estrogen or something, I don’t
know. He loses some kind of thing and this makes his mind very unstable. So
anyone whose mind would not be stable, anyone who couldn’t hold, for a long
time, a clear rejection of a philosophical viewpoint, see what I mean? couldn’t
collect {lok tha}. So a {lok tha} has to be from someone who can think clearly
and hold that thought in a firm way. And therefore they say, if you divide up
the people on this planet, there are two types.              The Abidharma is very
interesting. The kind that are intellectual, intellectually-inclined personalities, and
then personalities which are attracted to sensual pleasures. And normally they
don’t overlap. People are either interested in food or books, know what they
mean? There’s intellectual types and then there are sensual types. It says it has
to be the intellectual type to get {lok tha}, the person has to be an intellectual.

[student: Why? Why can’t they just....]

They’re the people who will really think it over carefully and firmly get a clearly
thought-out rejection of the laws of karma.

[student: So just thinking about it a little bit and casually....]

No, that’s not enough. It has to be a sustained rejection of this idea that if you do
something good you will get a good result and if you do something bad you will
get a bad result. There has to be someone who’s capable intellectually of holding
a sustained rejection of that in his mind. That’s the personality profile. So which
one of these two was the main one for the Abidharma? The way to cut your
virtue?
[student: {lok tha}]

The first one, wrong view. So we’re going to talk about... Abidharma talks
about how to get back on the right track. They call it “reconnect your virtue
root”, that you cut.

[student: Reconnect your battery cable.]

[laughter]

How do you restore it? And they say there are two ways. One is...

[student: Getting back what you lost? Or just getting back on the right path?]

Well, I’ll talk about... it’s a good question, you know. What happens to the virtue
that you have? Is it just wiped out, is it just erased? What is the process? All the
books say...

[student: It doesn’t ripen.]

It’s not that it ripens later than it was supposed to. It’s not that it ripens for a
shorter duration, like a lesser pleasure than you thought you were going to
have. It says it seriously damages its ability to give a karmic result. That’s the
later viewpoint. Abidharma says when we say cut your virtue root, we mean it’s
gone, you don’t have it any more.

[student: So which one is true?]

We’ll say Mahayana. Yeah, it damages the... it forms some sort of damage... so
the point is not so much... if you want to know the {sins tam}, what do we finally
say at the end? It’s not so much that it destroys the knowledge or destroys
them. It’s that it damages their ability to give their proper result.

[student: Is the opposite true?]

I was just going to get to that. [laughs] Okay? Good question. And this is very,
very, very, very important. The opposite is true. Which is what?

[student: If you hold the correct view then it repairs them?]
No, that you could tinker around with your bad karma. See what I mean?
Wrong view damages... wrong view throws a monkey wrench into the
operation of your good deeds, the good deeds that you’ve done. And there’s
something else which throws a monkey wrench into your bad deeds and
damages their ability to give you trouble. What’s it called?

[student: Purification.]

Purification.

[student: What do you mean when you say purification?]

I mean the four antidotes. And we’ll talk about that.... I didn’t have it in the
syllabus but I’m thinking I’d better. I think everyone’s going to be interested by
the last class. [laughter] So we’ll probably do it in the last class. Maybe even in
the review. We’ll discuss the four. We’ll discuss purification. But the point is that
when the Mahayana scriptures present this concept, they say it goes both ways.
They say you can short circuit your good karmic seeds, but you could also short
circuit your bad karmic seeds. Whatever’s true about one is true about the
other.

[student: It seems like in no case do you ever completely get rid of them. It just
makes them inert.
Well the Abidharma, if you read the reading, would say they just go.

[student: Right. I’m talking Madhyamika.]

But then the Abidharma also says that the way they get short-circuited is that
over a period of time they start failing to give their results. So it’s almost said
that the way it’s cut is some sort of gradual process. It’s not that one day, just
boom, you lose them. Because they start to peter out, they start to short circuit,
they start to not give their proper result over a period of time. You can read it in
the Abidharma.

[student: It sounds like the key here is that there is something which will cause
these seeds to come to fruition at some moment in time or not.]

It’s not so much that. They say it’s a damage to the seed. They compare it to
two things. Mainly they compare it to fire on a seed. At some point the seed
gets scorched and then it starts to give its proper sprout. That’s the explanation.
Exactly how it works would be interesting. I mean, if we had a longer class, and
I’d be curious too, we could use a computer, it’s very effective for questions like
that. I was using it and just in the few minutes before class I learned a lot. You
know, you can skip directly to the references to all these ideas. So, these are the
two things... we have to take a break. Two things that can restore...

[student: Wait a minute... you said Abidharma. You meant to say Hinayana,
right?]

Same thing.

[student: Yeah, that’s what I mean.]

In today’s lecture Hinayana means Abidharma.

[student: But if they’re gone, how can you restore them?]

Abidharma is a little bit unmerciful. [laughs] You can read it. First of all, {gesa
che}, when you cut that, you mean you lose them, they don’t exist any more,
you don’t have them any more.            But then he talks about a process of
reconnecting with them and getting back to them, and getting them back. And
maybe it means you lose them and then you get them back. I don’t know.
That’s what it says.

[student: Is that the same thing as...]

No. Abidharma love to discuss things like that. The Abidharma scriptures are
thousands of pages long. You can do it, Kiley. Okay. {tetsum}. {tetsum} means
what? Doubt. Doubt. Okay? Doubt. There’s a good doubt and there’s a bad
doubt. What do you think the doubt is here?

[student: The good one.]

Obviously. But what’s he thinking to himself? He rejected karma before...

[student: Maybe it wasn’t the right thing to do.]

Yeah. [laughs] [laughter] No, he’s getting older in his life, this is very common
with Buddhism, I’ve seen it in a lot of students. They start to get older, they start
to reach the end of their lives basically. Pleasures are starting to get less and less.
And they start to come back and search again for some answers. And then
they’re more receptive because they’re getting closer to death. Or people who
get sick, get serious illnesses, they often get {tetsum}. They start to doubt their
own position. They start to think, well maybe there is karma. So this {tetsum} is
defined as thinking to yourself, oh, maybe there might be such a thing. And
that’s enough already to get you back your {gesa}. That’s enough to reconnect
you with your {gesa}. To go from total rejection to maybe it could be. That’s
why it’s very healthy to keep that... what I mentioned before. Keep that with
the stuff that you say that you can’t buy, please keep this healthy scepticism.
Don’t reject it outright.

[student: Does {lok tha} only refer to karma?]

It can refer to Buddhahood. Those are classic ones.

[student: That’s pretty much it?]

No, there’s a lot of {lok thas}. [laughs] There’s no emptiness, emptiness means
nothing, that’s a {lok tha}.

[student: This is from Abidharma? [unclear]]

Yeah, this is Abidharma way. And it’s mainly antidotes to {lok tha}. What would
be the second one?

[student: Reversal?]

Something even better than {tetsum}. You know what that would be.

[student: Changing your mind back.]

{nepa} means... it’s a very hard to translate. {nepa} means to positively identify
something. Oh, it is...I don’t know a word in English really. The word means
“certainty.” It’s a mental function of certainty, that there is karma.

[student: Like affirm?]

It’s affirm, but affirm in the sense of {[unclear] sema}. There is karma. I’m sure
of it now. I know it. {nepa}’s not only the opinion that you’re sure, it’s the actual
perception that there is.
[student: So it’s not faith you’re talking about?]

Not at all. It’s a kind of certainty that comes from knowing.

[student: Either intellectual or by direct perception?]

By the direct perception of karma. [unclear] For us.

[student: The direct perception of emptiness produces such a thing?]

Oh yeah. A kind of certainty, oh there is karma.

[student: You see the noble truths, but you don’t necessarily see karma
[unclear]?]

That would be enough. That would be enough.

[student: When you say “reconnect”, do you mean the account was frozen? The
money was [unclear].]

[laughs] It seems to say that. It seems to say that. And I guess the process is not
so much that you destroy them, but you inactivated them and now you’re
reactivating them. I don’t want to say that easily because it’s not very clear to
me, but from what I read and from what I understand, that’s how it is.

[student: So what’s the difference between Mahayana? It’s the same thing, it
sounds like. Maybe the words are different, but...]

No, same thing, same concept. That’s why I’m presenting them together.
Because I figure you might as well know both of the problems and both of the
ways to reconnect them. We gotta take a break. Everybody has to come over
there because we’re having a big birthday party.

[laughter]

[student: Could it be like a hard-disk crash?]

[laughs] I don’t know. I never got my data back.
[student: Did you just say that the damaged seeds are now reactivated and
[unclear]?]

I would say that, although it’s not real clear and I mention that it’s not very clear.
But the wording of “reconnect” would imply that.

Say {penjay ki lay}. [repeat] {dzog ke chi lay}. [repeat] {penjay ki lay} [repeat]
{dzog ke chi lay} [repeat]. This is another division of karma. If I gave you all the
divisions of karma, we’d have a two-year class about karma. Again, we’re just
repeating the divisions from sutra which are reported in the Abidharma. {pen} is
a verb which means “to throw”, or “project” and it comes in colloquial Tibetan
nowadays with what you do to an arrow when you shoot it. That’s called {pen}.
So I don’t know what you would call that. Project. They call it “projecting
karma”. You could say “shoot” but “projecting” sounds better. {penjay ke lay}.
{jay} means “to do”, {lay} means “karma”. So {penjay ki lay} means “projecting
karma.” Projecting what? {penjay ki lay} is the karma which projects your next
life. Your whole next life. It’s the karma that decides whether you’re going to be
a human or an animal or a hungry ghost or a...

[student: In the next life?]

It’s the karma which projects your whole next life.

[student: What does that mean?]

Meaning the whole next life, from the time that you’re born into your next life—
I’m not talking about the bardo. The bardo, by the way, is considered part of
your next life in terms of {penjay ki lay}. So {penjay ki lay}, projecting karma, is
the karma which decides which of the six births you’re going to take. And then
you’ll be in that birth, I don’t know, if you’re human, it will be sixty-seven years,
if you’re an animal, it might be a few years, if you’re in the hells, you’ll be in
there for a couple of million years, but it projects that whole next life. It decides
which kind of being you’re going to be, and that’s what projecting karma means.
Whether you’re going to be an animal or a human... that’s the function of
projecting karma.

[student: Is “throwing karma” accurate?]

Throwing’s okay, not bad, sounds a little strange.
[student: We have a whole bunch of these karmas already. One of them gets
picked or activated...]

We’ll talk about it. Yeah?

[student: I was going to talk about the same thing.]

Well, since you bring it up.

[student: Can it be lightened from one lifetime to another and then become
inactive?]

Yeah. The big argument in the Abidharma, in the Abidharma position, is that
each karma... only one karma can do a {penjay ki lay}. It doesn’t take many
karmas to throw one whole life. It’s only one karma that throws the whole life,
it’s only one of your karmas that you commit in this life which projects your
whole next life.

[student: So it’s not a special karma? It’s just any one, random, out of the whole
batch?]

Yeah, depending on the strength. There’s a prioritization system depending on
how strong your anger is, how big the object it, you know, the one which is
most powerful is going to get pushed up into the queue and project your next
life. So this is Abidharma, {unclear}, Vaibhashika system. They say that the
whole next life is {pemba}, projected, by only one karma. Because—and their
argument is—by the way, this argument is not accepted by anybody else, okay?
—they say, well that one whole life has one consistency to it. You’re an animal
that whole life, or you’re a human that whole life, so therefore you have to be
projected by only one karma. It’s not that you change... you’re not an animal for
three weeks, and then a human for four weeks, so it can’t be different karmas. It
has to be only one karma which throws the whole life. This is Abidharma
system.

[student: I thought it was the state of mind that you’re in when you’re in the
bardo state that determines...]

Bardo is already too late. The minute your consciousness has left this body, it’s
already decided, because bardo is tied to the next birth. In the bardo you already
look like that the being you’re going to be born as. Bardo beings have some
resemblance... you know, if you’re going to go to hell, you look like a charred
piece of wood and there’s all these... in the Abidharma, what bardo beings look
like. If you could see a bardo being, you’d know where he was headed. It’s one
{penjay ki lay} which throws both the bardo and the next birth. It’s the same
{penjay}, it’s the same projecting...

[student: I was under the impression that if you die with extreme fear or
extreme desire that would propel you... let’s say you commit this act ten years
before you die before you die, it’s considered...]

Normally, in the presentations of karma, not in the Vaibhashika school, it’s sort
of the whole effect of your life. What has your life been? If you’ve been stingy
throughout your whole life. It’s not just incident of stinginess, it’s a whole
lifetime of being stingy and greedy and gluttonous and the effect is that you’re
born as a preta. Only the Vaibhashikas believe in this one...and their argument is
a little bit weak. Their whole argument is based on [unclear} and that doesn’t
make sense, they say...

[student: [unclear] Mahayana...]

They say it’s more or less the effect of your whole life. They say many karmas
contribute to what you’re {penjay}’ed into.

[student: So really then, according to them...]

Who? Abidharma?

[student: Yes. There’s really nothing you can do once you’re in the bardo. All
the talk about visions and everything else, it’s a fatalistic kind of thing...]

Oh no, I would say that most schools agree that.... I mean, by the time of the
bardo you’re pretty much...

[cut]



...but it can help. Normally, in the bardo, you already look like.. you already
have a certain color, you walk a certain way, you walk upside down if you’re
headed a certain way, there’s different signs of what you will be, they’re already
showing themselves at that point.
[student: Did you say that this karma causes you to experience the bardo in a
certain way?]

What I’m saying is that the projecting karma, the shooting karma, is not only
responsible for you being a certain kind of being for your whole next life, but
also for your bardo. It’s one {penjay}, even according to the Abidharma, it’s one
projecting karma which releases its power slowly... a slow release capsule?

[student: Time-release...]

Yeah, yeah, a time-release capsule. From the moment you die to the moment
you die in your next life, it’s releasing its power all through that whole life. It’s
one karma which has one consistent quality and therefore in thee bardo and also
in the next birth, you have this identity, that you are this person. From the
moment you die in this life, all the way to the moment you die in the next life.

[student: Is it the idea that the feeling or thought that you’re holding at the
moment of death is what you carry?]

That’s a very powerful influence. Your mind is... this is accepted by, it’s mostly
described in Mahayana, at the moment of death...they don’t talk about it much in
the Abidharma, what a crucial role the moment of death plays, although they do
say that if you have an extraordinarily strong desire at the moment of death you
would {penjay}, you would throw into that life. Okay. So what do you think
{dzogche} means? Some people call it “completing karma”, I call it “finishing
karma”. Like finishing school, finishing a piece of furniture, that’s like dzogchen,
the great completion or whatever. {dzog} means to “complete”. {dzogche ki
lay} means “finishing karma”. And it decides the details. And the Abidharma
has a famous line which says: {penjay ki lay} is the master painter who goes to
the big canvas and he sketches out the portrait, and then he leaves and goes and
does... he’s the maestro, you know, and then the students come and fill in the
colors. You can have a lot of apprentices who are not master painters who could
do the color. So they come in with different colors and paint them. They fill in
the colors and the master has already drawn the whole portrait out. So the job
of the apprentices is only to fill in the colors, and that’s finishing karma. So
according to Abidharma, can you have one karma do that or would it take
multiple karmas? {dzogche}, the apprentices, who finish the color. Think of each
one as being responsible for a different color. Then it would have to be a lot of
karmas. So they say the projecting karma is only one because its result is
consistent throughout your whole life, but the {dzogche ki lay}, the finishing
karma, many karmas can be contributing to that throughout your whole next
life. You’re rich or poor, you go through these cycles in your next life. You’re
handsome in your early years, you get ugly in your later years, the finishing
karma is all different. Different finishing karmas take over at different times.

[student: In Mahayana also?]

Yeah, pretty much accepted by Mahayana.

[student: The Mahayanas agree with the {penjay ki lay}?]

They say it’s multiple. Except in the case of say, {san me ki lay}, which we’ll
study, I think it’s next week, those extraordinary bad karmas like killing your
parents or trying to harm a Buddha. It’s one incident because of which you take
your whole next life in hell and in that case the Mahayanas would say, yeah,
that’s one karma that creates the whole next life.

[student: How does Mahayana distinguish between {penjay ki lay} and...]

It’s the same, they accept it. It’s just a question of—can this be multiple or not.
And Mahayana says of course it can be multiple. You see it in all over the
scriptures.

[student: No, but if they’re both multiple, what distinguishes between throwing
and finishing?]

Same distinction. Only the Abidharma School says {penjay ki lay} has to be one
single event of your life. Okay?

[student: If they’re both multiple, how are they different from each other?

One is more powerful. {penjay ki lay} is more powerful. That’s the {mur gyu},
that’s the main cause, that’s just more powerful. That’s more powerful. It’s done
with greater anger, it’s done towards a more holy object, you know, it’s basically
a distinction of power, that it’s powerful enough to decide which realm you’re
born into. And then the finishing karma is the smaller incidents of this life which
are determined. What kind of money you’re going to have, or... we call it {mu
shi}.... yeah?
[student: They say if...]

Abidharmas?

My understanding would be that if you recognize emptiness [unclear] and that
will become this [unclear] karma.

Well, I’ll talk about one... you missed the last course. We did a whole course on
this. [laughs]

[student: Sorry.]

You guys know. By the way, I wanted to say, what did that remind me off? Oh,
there’s a certain stage at which, by the way, you can’t cut your virtues. It’s
impossible. And that’s a certain point in the second of the five paths, which kind
of relates to your question. Your question reminded me of that. What are the
five paths?

[student: Renunciation...]

Which is called preparation, I’m sorry, collection, accumulation.

[student: Preparation, Path of Seeing, Habituation and No More Learning.]

So, you don’t have to know them for this course, but basically there’s an outline
of your spiritual career.       The first path is reached when you reach true
renunciation and you’re really sick of life. Second path is reached when you get
intellectual understanding of emptiness. The third path is reached when you see
emptiness directly for the first time. The fourth path is the whole process of
removing your bad thoughts based on your understanding of emptiness. And
then the fifth path is not really a path, it’s just a state of having finished them all.
And the second path... what’re you doing on the second path?

[student: [unclear]]

No, {jolosh}. What’s happening on the second path?

[student: Accumulating.]

Yeah. You’re getting clearer and clearer intellectual understanding and because
of that, at a certain point, you can no longer do {gesa jepa}. Impossible. You will
never lose your most basic virtue.
[student: At a certain point in path number two, not at the beginning?]

Yeah. Path number two. Because you understand emptiness.

[student: And then in path number 3, you can’t create any more non-virtue, you
said.]

You’re not collecting any more {duniya demwa}. You’re not collecting any more
source of suffering. That’s nice. If you can reach that point, it’s called {tsemo},
it’s called “peak”. It’s not the highest level, but it’s called peak anyway. Peak
level, second path, once you’ve reached that, you can no longer destroy your
good deeds out of {lok tha} and out of anger also, I’d say.

[student: So a person who just becomes an arya, they don’t get angry anymore
or they have this different kind of anger where it looks like the old but it doesn’t
have the same old gusto to it or something....]

I believe you could say... what you’re asking me, and now I’ll throw the question
back to you. If I was in a debate ground, I’d do that. Is anger one of the
emotions eliminated permanently by the path of seeing? Is it one of the...

[student: I don’t know, but according to you, if there is any bad karma that
comes from it, that would be no longer accumulated?]

How many did I give you?

[student: Angers?]

What two bad thoughts do you remove permanently when you see emptiness
directly? There’s only two. Kind of wimpy.

[student: Self-existence.]

The belief in what you see. You still see it, but you don’t believe it any more.
And what’s the other one?

[student: [unclear]]
No, doubt. You cannot doubt Buddhism ever again because you saw emptiness.
I’m not going to brag but at that moment, you realize that Buddhism is the
correct religion for the world.      Seriously. But I wouldn’t say that in a public
lecture, okay? But it is totally correct. It works, it’s true, if you follow it you can
get there, you won’t suffer any more, and there is such a thing as a Buddha, you
will be that, it will take so many lives, you will live them this way, you see all
these things. Period. You see it.

[student: So none of the Christian saints ever saw emptiness because they didn’t
talk about Buddhism when they came out?]

They didn’t call it Buddhism, but I don’t know.

[student: Michael, how come it’s not number three? Because in number three
you really know it, not just intellectually.]

Apparently it’s enough to have an intellectual understanding not to ever get this
sustained wrong view again. Just want you to know that. It’s good to know
that. Okay, now... Oh, the Book of the Dead, first of all, according to serious
Buddhist scholars, is defective. That book is defective. There are similar books
which are not defective. That one happens to be defective according to tradition,
according to Buddhist tradition. The details are somewhat incorrect. It’s very
good if you could perceive emptiness at death, but it’s the last thing you’ll be
able to do as you experience that extraordinary suffering, that final suffering, the
worst day of your life, the worst five minutes of the worst day of your life.
You’re into a situation of hallucinations. It’s as if someone injected a bottle of
Jack Daniels into you. And you have no more ability to think about emptiness
unless you’ve spent your whole life preparing, which is the whole idea, but only
what you’ve done consistently over your whole life will take over at that
moment. You’re in terrible pain. And beyond that, because of the physical
breakdown of your cells and your nerves, you can’t sustain a clear thought, you
just... the basis for the clear thought is being removed, it’s hard, it’s very difficult,
it’s very unlikely, almost impossible, you can’t. It’s a great goal and there’s a big
meaning. We will someday cover that subject someday, if we all live to that
long. You can learn all that. You can learn it properly. And there is a proper
text for that. We’ll do it someday.

[student: So the idea of obtaining enlightenment, the options are this life, the
bardo...]
To wait until the last minute is... you know it’s bad in any endeavor, right?]
[laughs]

[laughter]

[student: When the going gets tough...]

It’s unlikely. It’s just a bad time to pick. I mean, if you want to do it, do it
tonight. [laughs] Excuse me.

[student: I was just saying, of all the options for attaining enlightenment, the
ones that are normally mentioned as the ones to really utilize...]

It is a very important moment. It’s an extremely important moment. It is the
most opportune moment from the point of view of possibilities.

[student: You said it’s very unlikely.]

But it’s just too... for the mind to do it at that moment, it’s extremely difficult.
Much better to do a good retreat here and to just finish it now.

[student: The same with the bardo, the idea of...]

No, as you move into the bardo it’s very difficult. Once you’re in the bardo, it’s
even worse. According to the scriptures that we’ve studied which are ancient,
those are the real... and if we ever get to that point we’ll do it.

[student: Did you say that according to Abidharma the {penjay ki lay} is...]

Has to be only one.

[student: Resulting from one...]

One incident of your life.

[student: One incident. And Mahayana says its many.]

Yeah, they say, come on, the scriptures... but why did they say that? Because
one life is one consistent stream, therefore it can’t be a hodgepodge of causes
because the result is only one. And the only schools say, come on. Okay. We
can finish on time, can you believe that? Give me the {mu shi}, give me the {mu
shi}. {mu shi mu su} means when a kid in the monastery doesn’t have anything
to debate he says, {mu shi mu su [unclear]}, which means, “you can’t show me
the four permutations of these two, can you?”

[laughter]

When you’re a kid in the monastery, you can’t think of anything to say, so you
say {mu shi mu su [unclear]} and that buys time, because it takes time to go
through the permutations, and in the meantime, you might think of something
serious.

[laughter]

Think of... I’ll say {[unclear]} and I’m going to ask if you can guess, then I’ll tell
you the classical...let me give you first one. The first {mu} would be, not a cow,
okay? Tell me a {penjay ki lay}, tell me a kind of rebirth which is a good {penjay
ki lay} but a bad {dzogche ki lay}.

[student: A human birth is good.]

The {penjay} is good. By the way, anything above human is good. It’s three
good versus three bad. Human, what they call demi-god and god are good. And
then hell, animal and {preta} are bad. The {penjay} to be born into one of those
three higher realms and especially as a human, is good. And what if the
{dzogche} was bad? That’s your job. You’ve got to give us a good {penjay} and
a bad {dzogche}.

[student: He’s sick.]

He’s always sick, yeah, exactly. He has a lot of suffering in his life. So as far as
what realm he got to, the shooting karma was great. He got to be a human. But
he’s sick all the time. That’s a good {penjay} and a lousy {dzogche}. So Wilma,
you’ve got to give me now a bad {penjay} and a good {dzogche}.

[student: A bad would be an animal that lived at the temple?]

Yeah. Rinpoche’s always saying that about his dogs, because he makes them sit
in class and they get all these seeds in their mind from the... yeah, the {penjay} is
lower, it’s a birth of misery, it’s one of the lower three realms, but the {dzogche}
is good. The classical reference in scripture is {shinje she}. {shinje she} means the
Lord of Death, and it’s not Yamantaka or something like that. This is a real...
remember the guy who stands at the pearly gates and, you know... this is the
one who stands at the doors of hell. Supposedly, there is such a being. And he’s
actually... there’s a debate whether he’s a hell-being or a {preta}. He’s got this
terrible rebirth, but he’s the master of hell, he’s the lord of hell and he decides
what happens in hell. He’s like the big boss in hell. So it’s a lousy {penjay} for
him, but he gets to be the number one hell guard. So that’s one classical
example. The other is the nagas. According to Buddhism, they’re this class of
beings that we cannot see, that have some kind of snake-like qualities except that
they are very intelligent and they have great wealth. So they are reborn as kind
of like an animal, but they can think, they can talk, they have great jewels that
they have in their lands. You can’t see them. Nagarjuna went there. He did
negotiations with them and brought back scriptures and stuff like that. That’s
why he was called Naga-Arjuna.

[student: You mentioned earlier about wanting to be reborn in a Buddha’s
paradise. Is that the same as a form or formless realm?]

No, not at all. And Pabongka and other lamas are always saying, please don’t
make the boo-boo. [laughs]        One is temporary... form and formless is a
temporary nice state from which the flowchart normally goes back to hell. And
a Buddhist paradise, {tape shinka}, a Buddha field, is totally different, you’re
outside of something. The Buddha is out of the realms, he’s standing outside,
he’s up in the right-hand corner.

[student: That’s the Buddha, but I thought that unless you’re a Buddha, you’re in
one of those six realms.]

[student: That’s right.]

No, no, no, no. Not really. No.

[student: But the only person who could go to a Buddha field is a Mahayana
arya?]

Long story. Abidharma describes how you can go visit certain places if you’re in
the company of another person.

[student: So what are the options? You get the six realms? What are the other
options where you can be born other than the six realms?]

No, there are only six realms.

[student: Plus the Buddha field, plus anything else like that.]

Oh, oh, oh, we don’t call it a birth. {laydan yomoki won gyu}. To be forced to be
born, to be forced by karma and your bad thoughts, that’s samsaric birth. They
take birth and they’re not forced into it.

[student: Are there any other realms like that Buddha field?]

Nothing, no.

[student: In the god realm there’s a form and formless, right?]

Well, the god realms start at the top of the desire realm and they spread to the
form and formless realm. If you’re in the form or formless realm, you’re a god.
If you’re at the top of the desire realm, you can be a god. But what you call
“god” is not a... as I said, there’s two kinds of gods. One is a worldly god. He is
suffering. And then there’s a tantric flower or a Buddha flower, that’s a totally
different being. I call them pleasure beings and angels.

[student: On the Wheel of Life, it’s divided into [unclear]?]

[unclear] We’ll do that after class if you want. Okay, who’s going to give me
number three? Stillwell.

[student: What’s number three?]

Good and good.

[student: Born as a human and you encounter the dharma and become
enlightened.]

Yeah, that sounds good, right?

[laughter]

And [Kinon?]. Bad and bad.
[student: Born as a dog who’s treated... like a garbage dog.]

Yeah, I like that. The classic example is a {vichi} hell. A {vichi} hell means
{unclear}, the lowest hell of all, the name of it is “no suffering”, “no torment”.
And what it means is torment without stopping. It’s a misnomer. And that
would be a bad projecting karma and a bad completing karma.
[student: So the guy at the gate of that place, right? That chief honcho who runs
the concentration camp as it were, how could you go lower than that? Is he
going to end up going to the bottom of the very hell that he runs because of all
the things he did there?]

Actually I think he does. Normally it takes him there. That seems to be the way
things work.

[student: And by the way, according to Buddhist philosophy, each of us has
been in hell many many times, right?]

[student: Michael, you’re not talking about purification?]

Not tonight.

But I think I’d better shove it into the syllabus. [laughs] We’ll do it. We’ll
definitely do it. Maybe in the review class. Okay. I did pretty good. It’s 9:04, we
didn’t even turn the clock back.

[laughter]

[student: On the Wheel of Life, you know, they have the white and black
penned in, and the three animals, the craving spirit and the hell realms are in
white and the humans are in the black.]

I don’t think so.

[student: Oh no, I’m sorry, I’m backwards. The humans are in the white, but
you described the humans as not being able to generate white karma, but it’s not
painted that way.]

Well, white in the very technical sense, a narrow sense.        But white meaning
generally.]
[student: What is... you know, being born in hell for a thousand years in hell
versus ten years as a dog.... what leads to the one versus the other? Why such a
disparity?]

[unclear] It blows up, it increases exponentially.

[student: Michael can you...]

[cut]

Not by me.

[student: So in the idea of Madhyamika Prasangika, you know how perception
creates our future karma, our reality? It’s not clear to me the distinction between
our perception creating it versus our good deeds creating it.]

That’s the idea that the perception of your deed is planting a {bakchak}. And
then the {bakchak} flowers into a perception of your karma.

[student: So it’s not the deed itself, it’s the perception of the deed that’s
important.]

Right. Mainly. Mainly.

[student: So if you stab somebody, and think I’m helping this person...]

Yes, it makes a big difference. But it doesn’t make it.. it’s not totally dependent
on you.

[student: That’s what I don’t understand... how that actual deed turns into a
karmic result since the entire perception is oriented towards “I’m doing
goodness”, you see.]

Yeah, right, it’s difficult for me to understand too. There is some... it’s not just
your opinion of yourself as you do it...]

[student: There is some objective reality out there or something.]

I don’t want to say that....
[student: Well, not self-existent.]

No. There is some essence of the deed if it hurts others that makes it bad.

[student: Yeah, I didn’t understand how a {bakchak} actually creates perception
in the Madhyamika Prasangika.]

You mean how it flowers?

Yeah. Well, you actually do a deed, right? It comes to conclusion, you plant a
{bakchak} and in the end... I just helped somebody, I plant this {bakchak} of
doing good, how does that....]

How does it... You know, I don’t see any... no, I know what you mean, but I
don’t see any deeper than that, it doesn’t get that far. The content part, you
know, somebody in the other class said, why should the content part be the
opposite? You’re doing a bad deed to someone else, shouldn’t the result be out
to someone else? I don’t know.

[student: It’s almost like, by definition, at the most basic level of definition, in
karma we say a good deed is something which brings pleasure?]

Yeah?

[student: Well, you could almost say a bad deed is something that brings
pleasure and substitute that through all logical reasonings and all the logical
reasonings would still hold. If you change your base definition, your base
definition is “helping someone brings pleasure, right? And then everything else,
all the other logic...]

No, I didn’t say that.

[student: Huh?]

I said a good karma is something that brings pleasure.

[student: What I was saying is that the idea of a good karma is something that
brings you pleasure.]
The definition of good karma is... anything that brings you pleasure is good
karma.

Right, right. And then we go on to say, what is that? Is benefitting others?

Well, they don’t say that much.

[student: That’s what the whole Lam Rim’s about. Isn’t it?]

What if you just leave it like that?

[student: I know, I know.]

A karmic result [unclear] is a good deed.

[student: Well, that’s the thing for me, you know? The base definition is
faultless, a good karma brings you pleasure, but then the whole Lam Rim...]

Anything that brings you pleasure is caused by good karma. Karmically.

[student: Yeah, okay, so anything that brings you pleasure is good karma. And
then the whole Lam Rim goes on to say...]

[student: Michael?]

You want me to lock it up?

[student: Yes, if you want to.]

Let me come back.

[cut]

It’s not necessary to do as they’re suggesting. You see, when you do something
at work and it works, it’s not necessarily anything to do with what you did.
When something changes, it could just be the good karma of having tried to help
the person rather than the outside mechanism actually working the way we
normally...

[student: Can it have that rapid an influence, by the way?]
Yeah.

[student: It can happen almost immediately?]

Yeah. But it often doesn’t and that’s why it doesn’t always work and that’s why
people get frustrated. With dogs, who still pee....

[student: Since you’re still on this, can you clarify something? I read the last few
pages of the reading from last week’s class and I still couldn’t quite grasp the
relationship between a being’s perception of an object and the functioning of the
object and how those two are connected.]

The point is that because they’re empty, that gives them room to be functional.
And most people think the opposite. They think that if they were empty, they
couldn’t function. But the truth is, that because they’re empty, it makes room for
them to be functional.

[student: The question that was asked about, you know, is blood and pus real
for a craving spirit...]

The question was—is it actual.

[student: Is it actual and why not? My answer was, it is for that craving spirit
because it functions to hurt them. But I didn’t quite understand that answer.]

Well, what’s the test of whether something is real? That it can affect you. If it
can produce an effect on you, it is real.

[student: The only measure of reality is whether or not it functions in relation to
an individual’s perception?]

The ultimate test of reality is: can you perceive it with a {pramana}. An
additional confirmation would be, can it affect anything. But not all existing
things affect anything, so really the main test is whether or not you can see it
with a {pramana}. For you not to be drunk, not to be crazy, and you just see it,
then it exists. Actually in that case it’s also functioning to produce a perception.
But anyway, when it starts to affect you, it has some reality. Those are the two
arguments for why it’s actual pus and blood. (A) he can see it and he’s not crazy,
and then (B), it affects him.
[student: And whether or not that’s valid for any other being...]

Oh, there go the cookies.

[student: Oh dear.]

I got it. [laughter]

[student: Wouldn’t it be nice if people stopped [unclear]?]

[unclear]



Ask Pelma.

[student: In Madhyamika Prasangika, people say, this is my past karma that
caused this to happen to me. Really, who they are at that moment in time is
their past karma. Is that correct?]

Well, the Abidharma system would be closer to that. They say, in the Abidharma
view, that the person is in the form of his karma.

[student: Right.]

That’s not the [unclear].

[student: [unclear]]

[student: Could you say that again, please?]

Yes. There’s this whole thing about the person being his karma.

The past has led them to be what they are now, [unclear] all because karma is
who they are now.

[student: But it’s also gotten a little...]

[unclear]
[student: Would you mind if I asked you one more quick question?]

I don’t mind. But ask me quick. My dogs are waiting for me.

[student: The idea of when karma ripens, you know? There’s this idea that
you’ve got all these {bakchaks} floating around and all this stuff is coming
together and arising and you’re perceiving things in a certain way. What
determines when a karma ripens? Is it by us consciously doing things, that we
lay some kind of foundation that creates the causes and conditions for the events
to come together and have them happen?]

I’m not too clear on it, but tonight I read some stuff that said, they talked about
this queuing... in computers they call it queuing, you know? Who goes up in
front of the queue? And they said it was determined by the power of the deed,
the power of the object. Some deeds are so powerful that they can bump other
deeds back.

[student: Isn’t there also some kind of synergy between... Well, in the sense that
say you have a preponderance of karma that came from killing, that’s more
likely to appear and manifest as killing [unclear]]

He’s talking about timing.

[student: Why does it ripen now versus later? For example, I’ve really focused
my mind on working on my issues around...]

So, could you ripen them?

[student: At this moment, so I could deal with them, or by virtue of me working
on who I am and the nature of the functioning of my mind and perception, do all
those karmic seeds come to fruition or ripen now, or some of them, or...]

[student: Wasn’t that what they say happens when you do purification practice?
All these obstacles start arising...]

They say that. Yeah, yeah, they say that. In the Mahayana schools.

[student: So in terms of the timing of the ripening of the karma...]

[student: It can affect you.]
They say that. They definitely say...the scripture that says you can lower your
karma by getting mad at a Boddhisattva, the same scripture says right after that,
that you can also short-circuit the bad karma and then get a headache instead of
going to hell. They say that.

[student: Would you [unclear]]

[student: Could we have one additional session in which students could bring
the questions that come out of the rooms?]

I used to do that, and you know what’s even better about it, is that I used to get
the really important ones and go ask big lamas to speak about it.]

End
Collection of Merit tsunam ke tsog    first 4 perfections giving, ethics,
patience, effort
Collection of Wisdom      yeshe ke tsog       last 2 perfections
concentration and wisdom

Form Body            generated by collection of merit       Physical body,
either in Buddha Paradise or
Sambhogakaya/Nirmanakaya                                emanation body on
earth

Dharma Body        generated by collection of wisdom          Emptiness
(negative) and Mind/knowledge (positive)
Dharmakaya                                 Wisdom is the knowledge that
understands Emptiness
941117-1.aaa

HOW KARMA WORKS