ACI 5 «Как работает карма», занятие 10

Class Ten: How To Make A Karma Powerful
November 21, 1994



The Abhidharma Kosha talks about the six perfections and Bodhisattvas, so if
anybody asks you if Hinayana people teach you about that, you have to say
they’re actually here. They’re not quite the same as Mahayana, but they are here,
they are mentioned. So I thought you’d like to see... we don’t have time to do all
six. We’ll talk about the first good deed, and then, the principles that apply there,
you can apply to your other good deeds. What you have to know is the karma
involved in the good deeds. You have to know the principles of the karma, how
to make it a really good deed. So we’re going to talk about that. Say {jimba}
[repeat} {jimba} [repeat]. {jimba} means the first perfection. What’s the first
perfection?

[student: Giving.]

[student: Generosity.]

I like to call it giving because you can give protection to people, you can give
dharma teachings to people. Generosity to me is like giving a lot of money. I
like to call it giving. The Abidharma starts out by talking about four kinds of
giving.

[silence]

Say {dak ke jin shi}. [repeat]. {dak ke jin shi} means... {dak} means what? Do
you know? Oh no, you don’t know that. {dak} means “me” or “yourself”. {dak
ke jin shi) means for the benefit of yourself, for your own benefit. And that’s the
first type of giving of the four in the Abidharma. And there’s millions of
divisions of giving, I’m just giving you one, all right? So the gift for your own
benefit is this—it’s when you give to a temple or you give to a stupa or you
make offerings at a building and you’re actually putting forth offerings in the
building. There’s no other non-Buddha person there to accept them, you’re
doing it for your own benefit. There’s nobody else there who’s going to get
anything out of it. The Buddhas don’t need your offerings, okay? They have
everything they could ever want. That’s a principle of offering. When you get
up into the higher offerings and you’re offering to enlightened beings, it’s
basically for your own benefit. They don’t need it at all. They have much better
things [laughs] to focus on. I mean, they have their own pleasures, they don’t
need whatever cookies you can bring, or just... when you make an offering
basically it’s for the virtue of giving them, okay? The person here is two kinds of
people, all right? One is a normal person who’s not free of desire yet. And when
we say “desire” in the Abidharma, in this case, it means desire for the desire
realm, desire for this realm. Can you ever get rid of desire for this realm? What
is this realm? The first Dalai Lama defines it as two things, you know.

[student: Food and...]

Food and sex, okay? [laughs] That’s the main objects in this realm that we’re
interested in. And that’s what defines our realm. That’s how the first Dalai Lama
describes the desire realm. So is there a way to get... are you guys warm or
something? Tell me if it bothers you. Two ways to get rid of that desire. What?
We talked about it. Two kinds of powers.

[student: To see emptiness.]

One is to see selflessness, the other is what?

[student: Renunciation?]

In the Abidharma system.

[student: Generating merit?]

[student: The path beyond....]

There was a path beyond the world and there’s a path out of the world. Both of
them work. You can remove your desire for this realm. The second one doesn’t
work permanently, the first one works permanently. So the first one is to see
selflessness. You remove your desire for this realm permanently. But the
second one is just where you get into deeper and deeper meditations and then in
this realm, food seems to be too coarse for you. You’re into more subtle realms
of reality. You know the people who can live on a glass of water, you know,
they don’t have any desire for the gross pleasures any more. And that’s called
the worldly path. So the person who’s making this kind of giving either still has
desire for the desire realm, or what? Which of those other two do you guess he
might have?
[student: The first? The higher pleasures?]

It’s the person who’s into deep meditation. So he’s free of desire realm desire.
He doesn’t have desire for desire realm objects, but he’s not...it’s not permanent,
that doesn’t work completely. So basically, this is a kind of low person, all right?
[laughs] He’s giving with the hope of some kind of result... in where?

[student: This life.]

Well, that, and he’s going to have some kind of karmic result which is sort of a
lower pleasure.

[student: Did you say it was of no benefit to do this?]

No, it’s a kind of giving. And it’s a kind of giving where the mind state of the
person doing it is not very high. It’s still valid, it’s still good, [laughs] you’re still
going to get a nice samsaric result.

[student: You said it was two kinds of people?]

Yeah, it could either be a normal person who hasn’t had any realizations at all,
giving things, or it could be a person who’s actually free of desire for the desire
realm, but how did he get free?

[student: By going into...]

Just by going into deep meditation, which always fails eventually. [laughs] You
always come down, you know that. You know you go on retreat, you came
back, you had sort of a glow for a few days, and then you’re back to the island,
right? [laughs]

[student: So the first... the largest set is anyone who hasn’t seen emptiness
directly and of those two subsets....]

You could say that, yeah. So that’s the first one. The second one is that... {shen}
is the opposite of {dak}. What do you think it is?

[student: Others?]
Other people. In other words, the act of giving is helping the other person. By
the way, this act of giving is only helping the person who’s doing it, right?
There’s no one out there getting any big benefit... no other person. But this one,
{shin den chyu} is only benefitting the other person, and the one who’s doing it
doesn’t need it anymore, he doesn’t particularly care about it. I mean, he’s not
looking for some desire realm result for himself, so which person do you think it
is?

[student: Arya?]

Could be.

[student: Mahayana?]

A person who doesn’t have desire for this realm.              Yeah, who has seen
selflessness. So you can say an Arya, a {parpa}, a person who has seen
selflessness directly, giving to a person who’s not free of desire.

[student: Are you saying that’s the only kind of person who does that kind of
giving?]

In this division in the sutra.... what you have here is a realized being. When I say
“realized being” I don’t mean an enlightened being. “Realized” means anyone
who’s seen selflessness directly. And he has no longer any desire for the desire
realm. He has no hope of... he’s not going to get any samsaric result for himself,
he doesn’t want any desire realm result, he’s not interested. Yeah?

[student: He’s doing it to enlighten himself?]

Well that, but maybe... the person who gets a benefit out of this is the other
person. The other person is getting some food, or getting some clothes. It is not
describing like a Boddhisattva attitude or something like that. But as you know,
there are two definitions... what are the two parts of a good deeds? What are the
two maturations? The two ripenings? I mean, they give you pleasure in the
short term and then what?

[student: They take you to Buddhahood.]

In the long-term, they take you to Nirvana or Buddhahood.      So that’s
understood, any time a person does a good deed it’s going to have some
ultimate results.

[student: So if an Arya were to make his [unclear] so people got to [unclear] all
his teachings, wouldn’t that also be part of his own bank account?]

Yeah, sure, that would be {shen din chyu} if he didn’t have desire for the desire
realm. There are Aryas who do have desire for the desire realm. But the person
in this case is free of that karma. He’s not looking for any benefit out of it.

[student: I thought you said that if they see emptiness, they no longer have any
desire.]

No, they do. I said there’s only two emotions that you lose permanently the day
you see emptiness directly. What are they? They’re only two {tonpas}, they’re
called {tonpas}, remember? [laughs] [laughter]

[student: That any other religion would be...]

You can’t doubt any more. You get rid of {du min gyu de tesor}. You get rid of
all kinds of doubt where you’re not sure about Buddhism any more. Why?

[student: Because you see Buddhas.]

Because you see Buddhas directly. You see your future lives. And you know
how many lives it’s going to take you before they stop calling you Mike and
start calling you Buddha. [laughs] [laughter]. Really. So you go through those
experiences. You experience the four noble truths. So you can’t doubt any
more. You experience them directly and you know you’re not crazy. Those two
emotions are going on at the same time. The second one is what?

[student: The belief in self-existence?]

Yeah, the intellectual belief in self-existence. When you come down, and you
look around, things will still seem to be self-existent, but you know you’re
wrong, you know you’re crazy.

[student: So if you know you’re wrong, then you would know that...]

Yeah, right, by definition.. yeah, good point, by definition you know that
intellectually, there’s no such thing as non-emptiness.    But you still see
everything as self-existent, you can’t stop it. The day you do stop it, you’re an
Arhat.

[student: The day you stop what?]

You’re an Arhat the day you stop doubt and cease to see doubt.              That’s the
difference between an Arya and an Arhat.

[student: That wasn’t clear to me. Can you say it again?]

Yeah. The Arya doesn’t think he’s crazy, but he still sees everything as self-
existent. And the Arhat has destroyed the mental bakchaks that see things as
self-existent, and then he’s an arhat, that makes him an arhat.

[student: And which is number two? An Arya or Arhat?]

A person here is an Arya, and he no longer has the desire for the desire realm.
He’s not looking for any payback in the desire realm.

[student: Then why isn’t he an Arhat?]

Because he still sees things as self-existent. And the day he gets rid of that
tendency, along with his bakchaks, he’s enlightened, he’s at least in nirvana.
[laughs] So many permutations, right? Buddhists love them.

[student: For yourself and others?]

Yeah. [laughs] {unclear} means both, all right? {unclear} means “for both,” for
the benefit of both. This is where both people involved are going to get some
desire realm benefit out of it, so who do you guess?                 Who’s the giver?
Somebody who still has desire for the desire realm. He’s still looking for
payback in the desire realm. And the person getting it is who? He’s also getting
something in the... he still has desire in the desire realm. Both of them are still
getting something out of it. By now it’s obvious that getting something out of it
is not such a great.... it’s a desire realm result, right? This person’s not interested.

[student: Arya? How does the Arya fit into the whole thing?]

If a person who doesn’t have... sorry, a person who still has desire. An Arya can
still have desire.
[student: So you’re saying in number three you only get a desire realm result?]

Yeah. I mean, that’s the emphasis here. The person doing number three could
be an arya who still has desire for the desire realm. He has seen emptiness
directly, but he’s still not free of desire realm desire. Because seeing emptiness
directly doesn’t remove that particular bad thought. It only gets rid of those
two. And the whole goal of the fourth path, the job of the fourth path, is where
you keep practicing emptiness meditation to get rid of those two emotions.

[student: So is the same motivation in one and three, except that you do it in
animate objects...?]

Right. Now what do you guess?

[student: [unclear]]

[laughs]

[student: Why can’t you give with a non-desire realm result?]

You can. This is just a division here, you know? They’re trying to emphasize
that the person’s just gotten rid of this desire. You will obviously get results. But
mainly those are caused by what? What’s the main cause for being born in the
form realm?

[student: Perceiving it in meditation.]

Yeah. It’s practicing that deep subtle state of mind in this life. The main reason...
the main.. what do you call it? Entry ramp? Form ramp? [laughs] It’s the form
realm meditations in the desire realm. This means {unclear}.

[student: [unclear]]

[laughs] And this is where... well, I’m going to talk about it. This is where a
person, an Arya, who’s free of desire for the desire realm, gives to another Arya
who’s free of desire for the desire realm.

[student: But then what’s the purpose... it’s like a millionaire giving to a
millionaire?]
How do Buddhas interact, you know? What do you do? [laughs] [laughter] No,
you have to think about it.

[student: They enjoy the act of giving? I mean....]

Yeah, I think... you’ll see later. There’s two motivations for giving. Giving’s a
neat subject. It would be nice to do a whole class on giving, because if you did it
for six weeks I think you would really get into it. But there’s one kind of giving
where you’re trying to help someone. And there’s another kind of giving where
you’re trying to honor someone. And this would qualify as that. So Buddhas
are constantly honoring each other. They’re saying you’re so great, no, you’re
so great. [laughs] [laughter] And they’re both right. Okay? So those are four
basic types of giving. You have to think about it. It’s a deep thing. Why are you
giving something? What are you really want? Do you want a desire realm
result? This is even assuming you understand karma already. This is at the back
of the chapter. Vasubandhu is assuming you already understand karma and
you’re going to get excited about doing something karmic, so now think about
what you want, what do you want out of it? Is it that you just... you finally
figured out the way to get rich, you know. [laughs] It’s possible that if you
understood karma, if you had a class about karma, and you finally understood
how to actually cause things to occur, that you could then just become a desire
realm consumer, I mean, you would set up the reasons for you to get rich. You
can, now, you have the knowledge. If you want, you can go ahead.

[student: This is a real incentive to like find the Buddha so you can really give
him a present, right?]

[laughter] [laughs] You have the knowledge now. If you believed it, and if you
acted on it, and if you intellectually had meditated for hours and hours on it,
your behavior would change. If you were that kind of person who wanted a
desire realm result, and if you were intelligent, you would just start giving away
money to the highest objects you could find. And you would be guaranteed
success. But he’s saying consider the consequences. [laughs] The problem is that
by the time you get the money back, you might have forgotten how you got it.
[laughs] [laughter] And you’re just suffering again. Poor people suffer because
they struggle to hurt others to get enough to live on, but rich people think they
deserve it and don’t do the good deeds to support it. There’s trouble both ways.
Those are the four kinds of giving.
[student: Michael, is there any discussion of some kind of ... if somebody has
emotional problems and can’t receive, even though they need it?]

Yeah, yeah. They’re too proud to take it, you mean?

[student: Not necessarily that, but some kind of emotional problem, not
something clear-cut, like money, but something more emotional, and they can’t
receive it because they just can’t receive. There’s some kind of....]

I think that’s the kind of thing that {pretas} have. Even if you give a {preta} a
glass of wine, what happens? Before they can drink it, it turns into blood or
something. [laughs] The same metaphor is happening. It doesn’t... it’s not
attractive to the person by the time it gets there. Okay, how can you make your
giving better? I mean, if you’re really into Buddhism and you’ve been for a long
time, you might enjoy being generous and giving and then you want to know...
you don’t have all the time to do all the kinds of giving you can do, you can’t
take care of AIDS patients and also study all the scriptures and also go and work
and give the money away and also... you can’t do everything. And you can get
exhausted trying. You have to prioritize your good deeds. So I’m going to go
through some things that help you prioritize your good deeds. Let’s say you
want to devote the rest of your life to giving. Well, what’s the best thing to do?
What would be the most powerful kind of giving to do? So they divide it into
the person who gives, the person you give to, and then the gift. You need to
know the most powerful of those three. So first I’m going to tell you how to be,
you know, the first one is from your side. These are seven things that make you
a better giver. The obvious thing... when I say how can you improve your
giving? How can you decide which is the highest kind of giving, you almost
automatically think about, well, I guess dharma, and I guess helping a lama or
something like that, wherever you’re at. What could you change in yourself that
whatever you gave, it would be a higher kind of gift? So this is something you
might not think of. And these are called {papay nor dun}. Now we’re talking
about the giver, which normally you don’t think about. What do you have to do
from your side for a gift to be extraordinary?

[silence]

Say {papay} [repeat] {nor dun} [repeat]. {papay nor dun} [repeat]. {papay nor
dun} [repeat]. {papa} means what? Do you know? Arya. Arya in Buddhism
means a person who’s seen selflessness directly, he’s a pretty realized person.
{nor} means riches, and {dun} means seven kinds, seven kinds of {papay nor du}.
These come a lot in the Hinayana study.        First one is.... {depa} means what?
“Faith”, {depa} means “faith”.

[student: What’s the entire sentence mean? Seven kinds of riches for...?]

Seven riches of the Aryas. These are seven personal qualities that you don’t
have to be an Arya to get, but Aryas have them. These are seven personal
qualities that if you develop them, and if you at least have some inkling of them,
and then you give something, the gift is karmically.... we were talking about
manipulating karma. I mean, that’s our interest right now. How do you get
your karma? In the time that you have, in the window of opportunity of youth
and intelligence, how do you make your giving the most powerful that you can?
And the first thing is {depa}. Faith means understanding the good qualities of
high objects and it’s mixed up a lot with admiration in Buddhism. And the
example is that you look at the Dalai Lama and you feel some kind of admiration
in the sense that you would like to be like him. That’s actually the meaning of
“faith.” It’s actually more like emulation or something like that. The meaning of
faith in Buddhism... if you have faith in the Dalai Lama it’s because you recognize
his value and wish that you could develop that in yourself. That’s the meaning
of faith.

[student: It doesn’t mean “belief” in this case?]

I don’t know what other kinds of faith.... when I say faith in English, what do
you think? I don’t know. What do you think?

[student: Taking refuge.]

[student: Believing in something you’re not quite sure about?]

Right. [laughs] No, this is to see the good qualities of that object and to want to
emulate it. And that means... you can take the Dalai Lama as a good example.
Just this person who’s... what’s his career path? What’s his job? What’s he trying
to do? What’s his idea of what he’s doing... is he working for himself? He
doesn’t have any career, right? He’s just the Dalai Lama. All those good
qualities that he has...that’s {depa}.

[student: Is the object only a holy object, or any good object...?]

Any good object.     Any good personal quality. I mean, you can have {depa}
about a good quality in a person who’s not... faith in a good quality, even if the
person who has the good quality is in general is a schmuck... [laughs] something
like that. That can be {depa}. So anyway, you have this belief or this faith out of
knowledge, I like to call it “educated faith”, you understand the good qualities of
the object. That’s the first one.

[student: What if a person does not have the [unclear}, does that mean?]

There’s a thing in Buddhism called {dakay nowa} which means sort of a blessing
on your eyeballs, rose-colored glasses, that everywhere you go, all you see are
the good qualities of other people. And that’s a desirable state. You like people
so much that you’re like a mother who doesn’t notice the bad qualities of her
kids. She just sees the good qualities. And that’s supposed to be a nice state to
be in.

[student: What’s it called?]

[student: But then the question is if you give to someone you see as bad
[unclear]...]

Well, if you were seeing his good qualities to the extent that you didn’t see he’s
mean to other people and you didn’t try to stop him, then that would be bad.
What I mean is that when you’re among normal people and all day long you just
kind of take some kind of joy or appreciation of their good qualities and you
don’t concentrate so much on their bad qualities... or at your job, or anywhere
else, that’s supposed to be a desirable thing, {dakay nowa}.

[student: So you don’t need to emulate them per se either?]

No, you just see the good parts. That’s {dakay nowa}. Even in the highest secret
teachings it’s very important and it’s just some kind of blessing you have where
you don’t concentrate on the bad stuff, where you concentrate on the good stuff
and try to become that yourself. That’s in the Lam Rim, it’s a very deep thing,
it’s a great thing. It comes in the {mun lak}, in the {dak [unclear]], it’s very
powerful.

[student: Seeing like that is based on your {bakchaks}?]

Of course, of course, and also you can artificially try to get it. That’s not bad. If
you’re aware that you’re in your office and... it’s not fun and it’s not pleasant and
it’s not productive to concentrate on the lousy qualities around you. You just
purposely try to concentrate on a person’s good qualities, and after you do that
for a while you actually start to change.

[student: So this is just the same as rejoicing as you described before?]

Yeah, based on the...{tsultrim}, you know what {tsultrim} is?

[student: Morality.]

Morality. Avoiding the ten bad deeds. Morality sounds boring, I don’t know,
wish we had a different word for it.

[student: [unclear} Giving...]

The person who’s giving, the person who’s doing the giving, is trying to
develop... if the person who has these seven qualities inside his heart gives the
same thing as another person who doesn’t have these seven qualities gives, the
karma is like a zillion times more. That’s the point. We’re talking about how to
increase the kilotonnage of your karma.

[student: That’s a good analogy.] [laughs] [laughter]

You’re talking about how to reach it, you know. You’re trying to think about
how to.. so what I’m saying is the obvious thing is to give something more
valuable, and the obvious thing is to give it to someone higher. So what they’re
saying is that if you could try to develop, knowingly, purposely, self-
interestedly, try to have these while you’re giving, then the giving is much more
powerful.

[student: I just have a question about this giving. You said giving to a higher...]

We’re going to get to that.

[student: No, my questions is that if somebody lower [laughs]...]

We’re going to talk about that. That’s coming.

You mean the most bang for your buck, is that what you’re saying?
Your time is short. I mean, it takes a long time to get convinced that you have to
do good things. And then, when you get to that point, you don’t have much
lifetime left. [laughs] And you have to do the best things, you really have to
concentrate from this point. You want to achieve Buddhahood in this life, you
want to create karmic {bakchaks} which will flower into a totally different reality.
That’s going to take some heavy duty good deeds. Just the normal good deeds
ain’t enough, it’s not going to do it. The Buddha took how many billions of
years? That’s too slow. You have a chance now. You have to prioritize your
good deeds. I’m assuming you already know you have to do good deeds. Now
we’re talking about how to make them more powerful, how to get the effect
before you end up like Alan Toon(?). We were at his funeral and they painted
his face up nice and he was dead and his opportunity’s gone and he’s not in that
chair and he can’t do it now. So you have only a short period... you have to
know how to get the most...

[student: ...bang for the buck.] [laughter]

Okay.      Say {tonwa}.   [repeat]   {tonwa} is the real word in Tibetan for
“generosity” and that just means... I think the Pope said it very nicely in Giant
Stadium or something. Don’t give your extra, give your main [unclear], don’t
give your leftovers to other people. Give your real essence, the things you
really... give away what you have, don’t give away your extra. [laughs] I like
that.

[student: This is supposed to be a quality of a person that they’re holding in their
heart, or they’re giving? So....]

It means be... {ton sem chenpo} in Tibetan means “be lavish”, don’t...]

[student: ...be stingy.]

[laughs] Yeah, don’t go giving like.... ouch... [laughter] They call it {pamba
mepa}, it’s in that prayer. [pampa mepa}. Means just give it, be lavish. Okay,
number four is {tepa}. Know what {tepa} is? [laughter] Not {tupa}. Everybody
likes {tupa}. And most Tibetans have {tupa} in their hearts already. [laughter]
{tepa} means learning, okay? It means hearing, and it really does refer to raw
classroom hours with a lama, with a teacher.

[student: Study?]
Yeah, learning. It really refers to how many hours of stuff you’ve learnt, and
you need thousands of hours. It’s not... it’s just a direct correlation and you just
have to become very well educated. You have to know your stuff. And it has to
sink it, and that takes repetition, and it takes going back again and again and
again. You will study the same things many times again and each time it soaks
in deeper and the process is very... what do you call that? Irresistible. It does
soak in. It takes a lot of time, it takes a lot of hours. You have to go as much as
you can.

[student: How does that affect when you’re giving?]

So you know what you’re doing. [laughter] The awareness of what you’re
doing is really important. If you understand the emptiness of the object, why
you’re giving. If we are generous now, it’s called {sem ke kyi gewa}.... it means
we have some {bakchaks} rom our past lives. We tend to be generous, we’re
generous people, we may not understand at all what we’re doing. And insofar
as you don’t understand the mechanics of the process, it’s not a very powerful
object. If you don’t consciously think about this as being empty, giving to this
empty being, the gift is empty, the giving is empty, I’m empty, you know, this is
going to create an empty result. [laughs] I’d like it to create this kind of empty
result, you know. If you don’t have that, it’s not very powerful. You need
learning to study that. You have an idea of emptiness right now in your mind. I
don’t know what it is. I’m not capable of reading your minds. But I was reading
Je Tsongkhapa’s biography in the last few weeks.            He meets Manjushri.
Manjushri comes to sit at the table but Tsongkhapa can’t see him. Ummapa is
there, one of Tsongkhapa’s lamas. And Ummapa can see Manjushri. So
Tsongkhapa’s dying to ask Manjushri all these questions. So he says, can you
relay the message? Ummapa says okay, what do you want to ask him? And
Tsongkhapa says, ask him if I have a good conception of emptiness. And
Ummapa asks: Does he have a good conception of emptiness. And Manjushri
says: “No.” [laughter] He’s about 22 at this time, I think, no, it was later.... he
says, am I more of a Swatantrika Madhyamika or am I tending more towards
the Prasangikas? You know, the two schools of Madhyamika. Manjushri says:
“Neither one.” [laughs] [laughter]. Tsongkhapa is really astounded. He’s in his
early thirties. So it means that you have to... the view that you have of
emptiness now.. what they say in the books is, whatever conception of
emptiness you have, use it. But you have to refine it. If Tsongkhapa, after he
already had all these students, he already wrote his {bk: Noshen Nggyen] and
Manjushri is judging his knowledge as not too high. We have to refine our
knowledge, we have to use whatever knowledge of emptiness you have as you
do the giving, but you must refine it, you must do that because there’s no way to
do it without hours of study. Yeah?

[student: It sounds like you’re going from Abidharma to Prajnya Paramita here,
at this point, no?]

Not really.

[student: Is this consistent with the Abidharma?]

It’s selflessness. They say you must understand selflessness.

[student: Do they get into it to the extent the Prajnya Paramita does with
selflessness of the giving, the giver and the gift?]

Their idea of selflessness is.... we’re not going to get into it.

[student: I mean it sounds like you were sort of heading towards that....]

Not that much, not that clear.

[student: Next class?]

Absolutely in the next class, if we all survive. [laughter]

[silence]

I’m just following the tradition of the First Dalai Lama. When you read his
commentary, it’s hard to... you start to wonder if that’s really what they say in
the Abidharma. [laughs] Is he sneaking in some Mahayana here? He does
sometimes, and it’s hard to see where he’s speaking from sometimes. Say
{lotsar}[repeat] {shepa} [repeat]. {lotsar shepa} [repeat]. You had it before.
Remember {lotsar}? It’s one of the two kinds of reasons why you avoid a bad
deed. Do any of you know?

[student: Reasons inside yourself?]

Yeah, this is the one relating to yourself. This is where you had the chance to do
a bad deed, in the privacy of your own home, no one will ever know, and you
avoid the bad deed because of this emption. You have this quality in you. I
think “conscience” is close. Self-esteem, some sort of self, conscience maybe. But
it’s why you avoid a bad deed for reasons relating to yourself.

[student: So how do we translate those words?]

This is very... {shepa} means “to know”, an ancient root referring to your face,
and {sa} is to be embarrassed, to lose face almost, to know how to lose face, but
they don’t break it up, it’s an idiom in Tibet. But when you’re debating it... they
say, you should be ashamed to say such a stupid thing. [laughter] That’s the
classic case of how this is used.

[student: How does that relate to giving, Michael?]

It doesn’t relate directly to the giving. What he’s trying to say is that it’s not only
the gift. It’s not only the person you give to. If you yourself are a higher being
by virtue of these good qualities, the power of the deed is much more powerful.
That’s just something you would not have guessed, maybe. You kind of think
that if Saddam Hussein suddenly has a flash and decides to give something to
children, and then if the Dalai Lama gave the same thing to the same children, it
might be the same deed, assuming that Saddam Hussein is a bad guy at the
moment. Then it’s not true. The person who has the greater personal qualities
creates more good karma. The karma is more powerful only due to his own
personal qualities.

[silence]

You know this one, right? What would come next?

[student: A person who avoids a bad deed out of consideration for others.]

Yeah. A person who avoids a bad deed out of consideration for others. He
doesn’t want to offend, to hurt other people, doesn’t want to let down other
people, he doesn’t want other people to know he’s doing this. This is very
important for monks. Monks are supposed to be very careful. We’re supposed
to avoid the appearance of things as well as the reality.

[student: So you can call it public morality, whatever it is?]

You could say morality for the public, the way you act in front of others. That
involves not only the impressions they get, but the repercussions for them. A)
would this deed hurt other people, and B) would they lose faith in me or lose
faith in Buddhism or...

[student: Even if it looks bad but really isn’t?]

A monk has to be very careful about those things, especially a monk. We’re like
politicians. [laughs] But in general, yeah, there are times when... I remember this
story in the Lam Rim that there’s a monk who’s offering a mandala and he only
did it because his sponsor was about to walk in. Normally he’s meditating so
deeply he can’t do this mandala. But he wanted to impress his sponsor who
happened to be coming to the door, so he picks up the mandala real fast. Then
he caught himself and he threw the mandala on the floor. His motivation right
then was very pure and somebody with clairvoyance praised him a couple
hundred miles away at that moment.

[student: Pure when he threw it away?]

[laughs] Yeah, pure when he gave up his pretense. But obviously it looked bad
to his sponsor, but that’s a pure action. So sometimes there are things that are...
you can’t avoid a good deed because someone else might think you’re doing
something wrong. The impression that other people may get may be wrong. If
you’re sure of your motivation, that’s enough. But you can’t... if you’re a
teacher, you have to be very careful.

[student: So could that be a mixed result of his very pure motivation for him to
throw the mandala, but on the other hand if it caused the practitioner to lose
some faith or something it could have been bad, whereas the other way around,
if you caught yourself and said, well gee, the practitioner’s coming and maybe I
should offer the mandala at this time and it will help generate more faith in his
practice.]

Yeah, either way, either way I suppose. Okay, what’s the last one?

[student: Michael, it sounds like it’s almost a geometric progression here. Once
you start to become a good person, it’s like self-fuelling...]

These things are just... I was going to point that out. Once you start making
progress in one place you usually make progress in other places and once you
start screwing up in one place you’re probably screwing up in other places too.
It’s a kind of ecology or wholeness about it, a sort of holistic-ness about it. Once
you start getting good at generosity, normally your morality is getting better,
your concentration is better, they all.... {sherab}. {sherab} you know, I think?

[student: Wisdom.]

Particularly wisdom about emptiness.

[student: It’s the result.. [unclear]]

[laughs] [unclear] So a person who gives with those... that’s what makes what?
Seven things which make what?

[student: A powerful result from the gift.]

Yeah. Well, the karma becomes more powerful because of the giver. There’s
also... the giving itself is... there’s three things that they list about how you do the
giving to make it powerful. So that would be more in the sense of the deed
itself. So you want to make it powerful from every angle. The first one they say
is an attitude of respect for the person you’re giving it to. And that’s also divided
into your actual physical appearance as you’re giving. So not only do you give
someone something, but you do it very respectfully. And there are many cases
of Buddhist kings who get off their throne, go down to the beggar and hand him
the money. It’s considered disrespectful, in Asia especially, to say, here’s the
money. You give it to somebody to give it to them, you know, it’s considered
respectful. I think you have to apply it to our culture.

[student: Like a street person whom you give a quarter...]

Like my boss, recently we talked him into giving some money to [unclear] for
medicine [unclear]. He did pretty nice. He contacted the people who were
working on it and spoke to the guys really nicely, I appreciate what you’re
doing, that kind of... He could have just written out a check and given it to them.
That’s just in your manner, how you do the giving. The second part there is
when you give in time of need. You give what the person really needs at the
time. And you know examples of people who are very generous with things
you never wanted, like old ties and stuff. [laughs] You have to judge the need of
the person. You have to hit the right time and the right place. You can’t give it a
couple of weeks too late. You have to judge the peak of their neediness and give
it at that time. That’s the second thing that makes it powerful. And the third
thing is that when you give it away, it does no harm to other people. And they
give examples of... Abidharma says its like presenting a goat to a butcher, or
giving people poison to someone who wants to commit suicide, or you give
them food that’s not healthy.

[student: You give someone stoned out of their head on a street a buck...]

I think it really does apply here, if you’re sure, you’re never sure a 100%, but if
it’s pretty obvious that they’re going to hurt themselves, that particular line is
very clear, you had it in your reading. To give them anything which is going to
harm their health even if they want it, like poison, even if they want it, you can’t
do that.

[student: I’ve heard people say, well, in the case of winos on the street, all they
have is their alcohol and it makes them feel good, so you’re actually giving them
the only thing that can give them any small, short-term pleasure.]

I think that if that’s your motivation it’s a nice motivation but I also think that...
there’s this line which is undeniable... also, Buddhists can’t give intoxicants to
anybody, you’re not allowed to give any intoxicants to anybody. A monk is not
allowed to touch alcohol at all. For medicinal reasons its very touchy.

[student: I don’t think he’s talking about giving them alcohol...]

I know, but you know very well they’re going to use it for alcohol, why give
them a chance? By the way, most of us don’t give [unclear]. You have to judge,
you have to judge carefully.

[student: Why can’t you give a monk a knife to a monk?]

We’re talking about if he’s going to use it to harm himself?

[student: I was told you’re not allowed to give knives to....]

Oh, oh, oh, I never heard of that.       I know there are lots of Mongolian
superstitions. Not give a knife of a monk?

[student: As a gift.]

I’m not aware of it. Generally I give them sharp things for good luck. You give
them pins, needles... they’re supposed to bring good luck. I haven’t heard that,
but I haven’t finished my Vinaya studies, and I definitely haven’t finished... I
know how far I am and I haven’t reached all the rules yet. There might be one
that I don’t know about. Could be. So those are the three things that make the
deed. You do it out of respect, that’s the first one. Second one is what? You give
someone in real need. You go and do the necessary thing when it’s really hot.
You don’t show up ten days later and you don’t show up... you know when
they’re really going to need you and you come there. It’s like people are
washing the dishes and you wait until the last dish and then you say, oh, can I
help you? [laughs] Which I usually do. And then, what’s the third one? And
don’t hurt anybody else. You actually can’t steal anything to give to anyone.
You cannot do that.

[student: Especially if [unclear]]

We’ll get to that. You have to be careful about that. It’s tempting. I’ve been
close to that. You know, bamboozling a donor into giving a hundred more
dollars. You have to be careful. You can’t collect a gift using immoral, illegal
means. You can’t do it out of flattery and you can’t do it out of hinting to the
person... you have to be very up-front, honest, you have to directly ask the
person.

[student: Michael, if [unclear] take the grain from the poor people [unclear]. So
this guy was stealing to give it back to the poor. So he was stealing, but was he
really stealing?

Like Robin Hood, right?

[student: Yeah.]

No, we’re not allowed to do that.

But he was feeding people who were starving?

We’re not allowed to do that. Boddhisattvas are another thing. Bodhisattva
vows... you can break your Pratimoksha, your Freedom vows, for your
Bodhisattva vows. A person with Bodhisattva vows might be required to do
that. That’s a different thing. We’re [unclear]. Generally speaking, if you don’t
need to and [unclear]. Everybody likes the Bodhisattva vows and they can’t
[unclear]. Not really. [laughs] Have some tea and we’ll finish.
[cut]
[student: Giving and the method of giving, right? Now we’re going to cover the
four qualities of the person that you give this thing to. The first one is called
{drowa}. {drowa} means realm of being. What kind of being are you giving it
to? So, like the choices for us, since we can’t see the hell beings and we can’t see
hungry ghosts and we can’t see... the only two realms we can see are animal
realm and human realm, if you are whom you seem to be, I don’t know.

[student: And the Buddhas...]

Well they are out of all the realms. So, anyway, is it better to give to an animal
or to a person? There’s a hierarchy. It’s much more powerful to give it to the
human, if you have a choice. You could possibly affect this person. As a human
he has the potential. An animal doesn’t have the potential, so it’s much more
important to give it to the human. {drowa} means type of being, human, animal,
and obviously if the human is a very good person and has a good chance for
getting into dharma, then that would be even be better. First of all, it’s the kind
of being...

[student: That would almost indicate that the giving has to do with...]

...the potential for this person to benefit ultimately. Very important. And I
remember that when I first read it, I was into dolphins and stuff. [laughs]
[laughter]

[student: No, but you’d think giving to someone who’s starving...]

[unclear] What’s {dukgnel}, do you know?

[student: Suffering.]

Yeah. So {dukgnel} is also... if you give it to a person with {dukgnel}, it’s a lot
more powerful. {dukgnel} means suffering. Someone who’s hungry, someone
who’s cold, someone who’s sick. Much more powerful if the person is really in
need, if the person is really suffering.

[student: What was the question?]

First one is what type of being he is. Is he animal or human or.... Second one is,
is he in obvious suffering. If you give the same thing to a person who’s in great
need or who’s in pain, it’s much more powerful karma. Say {pemba}. {pemba}
means assistance, and this refers to people who have given you great assistance.
If you give something to someone who has given you great assistance... and this
always refers to what?

[student: Your parents.]

Your parents, your mother and father. Why?

[student: Because you give you your body.]

Yeah. Keep that in mind. We talked about it before. People say, oh my parents
weren’t such cool parents, my mother really didn’t care about me. It’s not the
point. Your parents have given you assistance because they’ve given you the
body. Once they’ve given you a body, they did something so important that
they are now a very powerful karmic object for you. Once they have given you
a body, and in fact it’s the two substances that come from the mother and father
that ultimately can be of great importance to you in your higher practices. And
they’ve given you that opportunity, they supplied you with that physical body.
They’re already a very powerful karmic field and you have to be very careful
towards them. If you give them something, it’s much more powerful.

[student: If somebody sells the egg...]

We talked about it.

[student: I know, I know, I’m going to ask that question.]

All right.

[student: Is it considered bad?]

No. It’s not bad. It depends... there is this thing about giving all your body parts
and things like that. If you do it for money, it’s much less virtue then if you did it
for charity, but if your intention is to have a child who can’t have a child, that’s a
good intention, no problem with that.

[student: [unclear]]

Obviously... meaning what?
[student: Teachers.]

Yeah, I think so, ultimately.

[student: So we could take this to the other extreme and negative karma....]

Excuse me... but the Abhidharma usually mentions your parents.]

[student: So, by inference, you can take it to the other extreme and say it’s really
bad news to be angry at your parents?]

Oh, very bad, very bad. Even if all the circumstances are... even if they deserve it
in a sense, it’s very bad because of the power of that object. Very potent karmic
object. If you can’t be nice to them, at least be neutral. [laughs] That’s a thing in
America. Remember {yenden}? Common to that name [unclear]. Anyway, it
means good quality, it means high spiritual quality. By the way, giving is
supposed to have two modes. One mode is when you’re trying to help the other
person. The other mode is where you’re trying to honor someone, you’re trying
to show... the Dalai Lama doesn’t need your flowers and your fruit and your
cookies and you know... but you just want to be there at the Kalachakra... you
want to make sure you offer something just to honor his presence, just to say “I
honor who you are.” And that’s a {yenden kyi shi}. I think we had it before.
People who had just come out of certain states... what was the obvious one?

[student: When they just saw emptiness for the first time.]

Yeah. That’s obviously... a person who’s just... especially when he’s just come
out of that state, anyone who does anything to him is magnified. A person
who’s seen selflessness directly, anything you do, good towards them or bad
towards them is magnified, very much more powerful karma.

[student:   [unclear] oftentimes turning around and giving it to someone else,
right?]

Well, there’s this famous story that after this lama died in Tibet—he was a hermit
and people used to shower him with presents and stuff—and after he died they
found all these coins and clothes and food... he lived near a cliff. He used to go
and throw them over. [laughs] [laughter] He never used them. It doesn’t
matter.
[student: Explain what you mean by the high spiritual qualities?]

It means that person, regardless... he doesn’t need your offering, but you’re
honoring him. You meet the Dalai Lama and you offer him a flower and that
flower given to the Dalai Lama is much more powerful than the same flower
given to... I’ll give you an example. When Tsong Khapa in his previous life met
the First Dalai Lama, [unclear] he was a certain person, and he offered the
Buddha a rosary, a crystal rosary. According to tradition, that deed helped him
become so intelligent in this life. Just the power of that deed... and he was
dragged to that Buddha by Manjushri, the bodhisattva Manjushri.

[student: Michael, let’s say you have $5 in your pocket...]

I love this question, I’m hoping someone would ask this question. We’re talking
hierarchy now. What do you do with the $5? I don’t want to say. You consider
all these things. I’m going to give you one more list. Abhidharma loves lists
[laughter] as you might have noticed by now. By the way, it’s easier to
remember things, if you know it’s the six this and... there’s whole dictionaries in
Tibetan with five of this and six of that. I’ll give you the data, you can figure it
out. But I like the question because your resources are limited and your time is
limited and your mind... [laughter] I mean the time of your own mind, no I
mean the time space [laughter], the minutes that your mind will be clear in this
life are numbered. You will have so many hundreds of hours of clear thinking
and that’s all you have, and then it just gets fuzzy and then you just can’t do this
thing. [laughter] So really, seriously, you have to do these things. It is an
important decision and I’m glad it occurred to somebody. Now what shall I do?
Shall I reprioritize my giving. You decide, from the information.

[student: What about the three categories? Is one more important than the
other?]

I don’t remember any... I have a feeling they are increasingly more important.

[student: That the object is most important?]

Yeah. You can read it in the reading and he bases it on sutras. Sutra says if you
give something to a person in the selflessness realm, the karma is more
powerful. Okay, I’m going to give you a new idea.
[student: Michael, if you have $5 and you give it to the Dalai Lama, clearly he
doesn’t need that $5 dollars but a starving person needs that $5.]

That’s what I’m saying... you have to study to accept that. It’s hard to accept
that. You have to think about it. Dalai Lama tells you to give it to the poor
person. But I don’t want to draw those conclusions for you. You can read the
Abhidharma. I gave you the readings.

[student: [unclear]]

Oh, I will. Maybe I’ll do it now. But I have one more idea to tell you. Say {jela
sak pa}. [repeat]. {je} means “committed”, {la} here means “and”, {sampa}
means “collected”. This is a future karma. You can have karmas that are
committed but not collected. You can have karmas that are committed and
collected, etcetera. Neither committed nor collected. What it means is that this
particular karma is going to stay with you and be stored more firmly in your
mental stream if it has six causes. It’s a distinction made in the Abhidharma.

[student: “Collected” meaning “ripened”?]

Meaning stored in your... you know, if you we go back to the higher schools, the
{bakchak} is really firmly planted into your mental stream.

[student: How can any karma not be...]

You can debate the Abhidharma stuff. I like the question. We’ll get into it. By
the way, we would like to reach a point where we do {tela masapa}, which is
what?

[student: [unclear]]

We did it, but we can unstore it, unactivate it, that’s the whole idea. And the
review class is very important. Next class... is that it? A week from today? It’s
very important. This is going to lead in to how to deactivate the seeds. And
we’ll do a little bit of that when we do our review. So six things that make the
deed... the first thing is that it’s done intentionally.

[student: This is [unclear]]

Six things that make it very firmly stored, not only committed but also stored.
[student: So this is the good deeds we’re talking about now?]

Either way. The intention plants it more firmly.

[student: Are you saying there are only two options? Committed and collected
or committed and not collected?]

They give all four moves(?), okay, and I don’t quite know how you can collect it
but not commit it. [laughter] But to tell you the truth, I didn’t read it very
carefully. They do say there’s such a thing. Maybe it’s where you did a mental
deed but you didn’t act it out. Okay. We had that before. Do you remember
what it entailed? A karma basically has about four things going on.

[student: thought, intention, the undertaking of the action...]

And the conclusion, right? And those four...and this is interesting, because the
Abhidharma is more clear than Je Tsongkhapa was actually at this point then. If
you have all of those complete, the karma is more powerful. It’s just much more
powerful. If all four are complete, and the Abidharma gives six and they include
the other four. I’m not going to redo that because it’ll be too long.

[student: But this again sounds negative?]

This is negative. What would be in the positive side? Rejoicing. So no regret
means you do the bad deed and somebody asks you... this is also in a court of
law, right? They ask a guy, are you sorry about what you did and he says no, I
kind of enjoyed it. Then they give him twenty more years. Karmically also. If
you have no regrets about what you do, then the karma is more powerful. In
the case of giving, it’s rejoicing. To be happy over what you do good really
magnifies your karma, it’s much more powerful karma. Probably I should have
done a homework question like—design the ideal karma. In the computer
magazines, the guy goes and buys the best monitor and the best chips and he
collects the best, they call it the ultimate good deed. Give me all the elements of
the ultimate good deed. What’s the ultimate object? What’s the ultimate
motivation? What’s the ultimate thing to give? Number four...no antidote.

[student: What’s that?]

We’re going to talk about antidotes in the next class.
[student: You mean afterwards?]

But what it means is...

[student: In a good sense?]

Let me think about it. But you don’t do anything to make up for it. In the
concept which develops from the Abhidharma...you can see now it’s root is in
the Abhidharma, in the concept of the four forces, where you try to purify the
{bakchaks}, you try to deactivate them or ruin their ability to do some result, this
is very important. Antidote means you do something to make up for it, you try
to make up for it somehow.

[student: But in a positive way, it would be sort of like maybe just allowing it to
grow, you know, for it to become more generous or something?]

I can’t think... let’s see.. maybe just a continuum.

[student: I would think that allowing this giving to...]

Multiply.

[student: Yeah.]

Number five. By the way, what’s the most powerful of all antidotes according to
the Lam-Rim?

[student: Bodhichitta.]

[student: Seeing emptiness.]

Meditating on emptiness. I used to do that. My confession. You just go home
and try and meditate on something. If you did a very bad deed and you want to
purify it...

[student: And you see the emptiness of it?]

[laughs] By the way, if you saw the emptiness of it, what would you see?
[student: You didn’t do it, and you didn’t it to the person...]

No, no, you would see how absolutely certain it is that it’s going to hurt you. It’s
not the opposite. We wish, right? When you understand the emptiness of your
bad deeds, then you’re going to start shaking, because then you know that they
work. Number five.

[student: Michael, how come there’s intention twice? Intention is in number two
also.]

I think he means here... they do overlap. The other ones are going to overlap
also. But I think that here he means the idea of all four elements being complete.

[student: Oh, but intentional is not the same as intention, is it?]

Well, it does, it does. There are two Tibetan words. {sam shintu} means...it’s
“knowingly”, and you can say, knowing the consequences, knowing what’s
supposed to be happening, you still do it. And then {kun long} which is the word
“intention”, which means that you want to do this thing, it’s your full intention
to murder somebody. It’s not that you hit them by accident in your car. A {sam
shintu} would be almost unthinkingly, unintentional means “unthinkingly”, but
with no intention means you didn’t have that specific intention to kill somebody,
you killed him by accident. Number five is with the attendant(?). There’s a
debate in the Abhidharma, there’s two viewpoints about what it means. The
easiest one to remember is what you hear in the Lam Rim, where they say,
when you’re done with the deed, you take some joy in it. And obviously in a
good deed it would be the same thing, you did it, and after it’s all done, it’s kind
of the wrap-up, a mental wrap-up, the guy’s there on the floor, he’s got the knife
sticking out of his vest and you say, “hot damn,” [laughs] [laughter]... that’s
called an attendant, the satisfaction that you did it. That’s the easiest one to
remember.

[cut]

I should say karmic result. I think this is more describing the whole thing, you
know, I think it’s the last one, and it means {sappa}, the idea of
collected...”collected” means it’s going to give you a karmic result. And I think
it’s almost a result of all the other five. I don’t think it’s like... it’s hard for me to
conceptualize it as a different category altogether. To me it defines the idea of
collected. “Collected” means you cemented that seed to have this perception
later in your mind, it’s now cemented in there, that you’re going to experience
this result, you will perceive yourself having that result, and I think that’s part of
the idea of collection.

[student: I don’t really understand... number two has already been described as
the complete path of karma, has every single cause of a full karma...]

There’s actually six elements and I don’t have time to go into them. They’re
basically the ones that you’ve learnt before.

[student: So given that number two is a complete path of karma and say these
are the four steps, everything will karmically ripen fully, why is this of any more
consequence than the other ones?]

The other ones?

[student: Yeah, one, three, four and five.]

I think that what the Buddha’s doing... remember the Abhidharma. If I was a
college professor, I would say that well, well, you can see that from this crude
Hinayana belief, the sophisticated Mahayana belief comes out later, of the four
forces. But I think that if you’re a Buddhist, you have to say that the Buddha is
setting you up mentally for the four forces. They’re coming next class. But it’s
the idea specifically... he’s setting you up for the idea that if you did have regret,
if you did do some antidote, you could somehow, maybe you could affect those
karmic seeds in your mind, in your being, maybe you could do something, I
think he’s setting you up for that idea. Sutra is not always cut and dry, sutra is
not always... they don’t overlap or subsume each other, the divisions are not
always strict divisions, sometimes they overlap with each other, and that’s no
problem as long as you know which ones overlap, you can define them. Okay.
{kum [unclear]}

[student: I’m talking about karma, the path of karma. You said karma is
movement of the mind, and the path of karma or the actions [unclear]

I taught those four things...

[student: I thought karma was the movement of mind and what follows.]

Yeah, yeah.
[student:   So any action that follows from the movement of the mind is still
karma.]

That’s true.

[student: So what we’re saying is that...]

Yeah, there’s three possibilities, right? Something which is a karma, but not a
path of karma, something which is both a karma and a path of karma, and
something which is only a path of karma and not a karma.

[student: But I’m saying since a path of karma is defined as what you go out and
do...]

It’s a very tricky thing and it’s not too clear to me, but apparently it has to have
all six of those elements in it or those four...

[student: So you do have some karmas.... [unclear] But you see, what I’m
saying is that since karma is defined as what follows the movement of the
mind...]

No, no, {sema yuji lay yi no de ni chepa}... it means both are karma.

[student: Right.]

The movement of the mind is karma, and what it instigates is karma.

[student: But I understood the path of karma to not be karma.]

No, it is. In the case of the first seven bad deeds, it’s both.

[student: Right, but in the last three, it’s not. But my point is...]

They’re not karma, they’re paths of karma.

[student: That’s my point. How can a path of karma not be karma if karma is
defined as the movement of the mind and what follows?]

What they mean when they say what follows is only subsumed by physical and
verbal deeds.

[student: What do you mean by subsumed?]

They can only be physical or verbal. They can’t be mental.

[student: But the movement of the mind is mental.]

Right. When they say {de ni semba don de che} which means “karma is a
movement of the mind and what it instigates”, the words “what it instigates”
only refers to the first seven.

[student: I understand, but you’re saying...]

The movement of the mind...

[student: ... is karma.]

Yeah, the point is this. It’s a separate mental event from the anger or the desire.
It’s going along in the same mind with them, but it’s a separate mental function,
and that’s the point. In fact, when you get up to Swatantrika Madhyamika, they
define “dirty karma” as karma which is instigated...as the movement of the mind
instigated by the bad thought of one of those last three.

[student: How can you have a thought that’s not a movement of the mind?]

Well, all thoughts are accompanied by movements of the mind, that’s the point.
You see, when you’re talking about the last three, you’re talking about a strong
emotion, a bad emotion. And the emotion is separate from the...]

[student: The mind and mental functions are separate is all they’re trying to
say?]

No, that the few mental functions going on in the same mind at the same time
are separate, but they are linked in five ways, they are focused on the same
object, they have the same coloring towards the same object, they are
simultaneous towards the same object, they are based on the same sense organ.
Like if you’re pissed off by what you’re looking at, they’re based on the same
eye... and they are equivalent in those respects, but they are not the same. They
are independent of each other. And one Buddhist school says that the Sutrists,
the Sautantrikas say, no, the last three are karmas also. So, it’s even a debate in...

[student: Another question is, the idea of the perception, the {bakchak} that you
create? If someone yells at you, and you perceive it as being yelled at and as
being unpleasant, is that planting a {bakchak} so that the next time you get yelled
at that you will perceive being yelled at as being unpleasant? Versus if you kind
of fool yourself... you know like, oh, that wasn’t so bad that he yelled at me,
you’re planting a {bakchak} to not perceive being yelled at as so unpleasant next
time?

It helps, it helps, but it’s not the main karmic cause...

[student: Of perceiving it as pleasant or unpleasant?]

I mean, the karmic result of attempting to perceive his emptiness at that time is
separate from another event in which an older karmic cause makes somebody
yell at you.

[student: You see, I’m not talking about [unclear]. There are a lot of people who
go around just trying to fool themselves, like pretending that it didn’t hurt, or
pretending that it wasn’t unpleasant, I’m wondering if that...]

It’s a virtue if your intention is not to get angry... but if it’s one of these weird
new age things where they say, or when they explain emptiness poorly and they
say, oh the guy’s not really there, and there’s no reason to get mad.

[student: No, I’m thinking more of people who go around always wanting to be
nice and happy and they’re in denial in a way of the fact that they’re getting
yelled at....]

They could be in denial, or it really could be their perception.

[student: Well, okay.]

See what I mean? There is a denial thing, I believe there’s both. I believe there
are people who honestly don’t see the bad there.

[student: But that’s a whole other matter there. I’m saying if someone is
consciously saying, well if I just trick myself that this is not...]
Yeah, yeah. Shantideva says that’s all right. Shantideva and Nagarjuna both
spend their whole books, {bk: Surleka [unclear]} and {bk: Bodhicharavatara}...
they both start out with all these tricks of how to fool yourself into not being
bad, and then the classic thing is in {bk: Surleka}, Nagarjuna’s half-way through
the book and somebody says, well, how can a monk not have desire for a
woman? And he says, well, look at the poop coming out, and the snot coming
out, and everything’s coming out, and then he says, but that won’t help much,
see her emptiness. [laughs] And then the whole rest of the book is emptiness,
that’s his excuse for starting his explanation of emptiness.

[student: In Madhyamika Prasangika, I understand the whole aspect of the
{bakchak} generating our perception of the event. What I don’t understand is
the aspect of the data that’s out there that arises.]

I know, I like this one. I know what you mean and I like it.

[student: I don’t understand how that karma causes that data to function in a
certain way. Do you know what I mean?]

Yeah, I know what you mean. According to Madhyamika Prasangika, the
highest view, when you look at the guy at work and he’s angry at you, you are
getting outside objective sensual data that you’re interpreting...]

[student:   And what causes that?      How does this karma function that causes
that...?]

As soon as you focus on that, as soon as you asked me this question, you’re
focussing on the redness of his face and the decibel level of his voice and stuff
like that, then you’re perceptualizing those also.

[student: Yeah, right.]

And there are external sensual data and you perceptualize those. And when you
back up one step again, and you’re just thinking about the guy, then the red face
and those things are outside sensual data, they’re the data on which you’re
basing your perceptualizations. But when you go down to study the redness of
his face and why you see it as anger, then the data is the parts of the red matter.

[student: Yeah, that’s all the pure perceptual side which I got...]
No, that’s also from the object side. [laughs] You’re asking does the glass of
water change when the [unclear] puts it to his lips? Yes. Yes, the water tastes
[unclear]...]

[student: So my question is, how does karma impact that?                What is the
mechanism, the functioning mechanism that causes it to do that?]

It was in the queue, it was prioritized by the power of the karma and it ripens
first, before the others. That’s all, whichever one was more powerful according
to all these factors. It ripened first. And you had the karma to want to study the
redness of his face.

[student: I’m just going to have to let go of this one.]

No, I like the question.

[student: I can’t get it, I can’t get it.]

[student: What makes the seed with the objective constituent of that which you
then perceive as the ripening of your seed?]

Well, Mind-Only says, you know, the same seed created the objective data and
your perception.

[student: But that would not be in the higher schools?]

Yeah. We don’t believe... we accept the principle that the object is coming from
the same karmic seed. We don’t say that they were both expressions of some
seventh consciousness called alaya vignana. That’s the difference. And that used
to bother me in the monastery. It sounds great to me. Why can’t we accept that?
My teacher said, it was like one of the most profound things he ever said to me,
he said, oh, we can accept that, we just don’t believe that it’s in the alaya vignana.

[student: Okay, last question. I understand that as far as powerful objects go,
the idea of benefitting more beings, making a more powerful object. But what
makes inanimate objects powerful? Objects of karma to perform an action
toward?]

Well, we said religious books, religious temples....
[student: Why are they powerful since they’re not...]

Just their potential to act as a {jedang} of wisdom. We had that.

[student: What’s a {jedang}?]

{jedang} was when we studied the word Abhidharma. The real Abhidharma is
wisdom and its accoutrements. Then there’s real accoutrements and symbolic
accoutrements.

[student: Like a stupa, walking around, circumambulating a stupa. How is that a
powerful object?]

Because of its relation to the act of escaping suffering.

[student: Which is what? How is circumambulating a stupa relating to escaping
suffering?]

Oh, it contains the remains of some person who had deep insights and when
people see the stupa they’ll think of it...

[student: But the idea is even without thinking they benefit... a fly going around
a stupa benefits from it.]

Yeah, there is.

[student: So how is that a powerful object for a fly...]

Oh, the fly has no conscious awareness of the holiness of the object.

[student: Yeah, [unclear]].

They say it works, I don’t know. [laughs] [laughter] I know what you mean.
They say it in the opposite way, that if you kill a person and he’s a {drachoma} or
an {arhat} and you didn’t know it, it doesn’t matter much.

[student: Okay, thank you.]

[student: So we don’t know why a traveling...]
Well, if I was in a debate ground, I’d say, well, he’s going to.... just by being in
the presence of that object, he’s creating a {bakchak} to see that object more in
the future and when he’s born as a human, he’ll see this object, and he’ll wonder
what’s inside and you know, something like that, maybe?

[student:   Well, that makes it a normal {bakchak}, not necessarily a powerful
object.]

It has the potential to turn into a human being’s curiosity or attraction to stupas.
Which people have, and sometimes you don’t know why. Some guys are
obsessed about taking pictures of Tibetan stuff and they don’t know why. Some
people are attracted to the letters... they get this thing when they see the... many
people have told me, that when they see those Tibetan letters they freak out.

[student: I was at Century 21, they have leather coats with Tibetan script around
the sleeves. [laughs] Like high-end designer leather coats.]

Really?

[student: I don’t know what it says, but....]

Just [unclear]. [laughs] [laughter]

[student: Michael, I just wanted to say that I’m moving, so this will be my last
class.

Okay.

End
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HOW KARMA WORKS