Believing In Kamma Is Fundamental For Buddhists

This human realm is the realm to build our merit and parami,

Spiritual accumulations.

And mostly people don't want to suffer,

And want to gain happiness.

When we have enough merit,

Then we come to be born here.

All of the sammasambuddha,

The perfectly self-awakened ones,

Become enlightened in this world,

This human realm.

They had built parami to be born and enlightened in this human realm,

And they teach the Dhamma to primarily human beings.

So we have the opportunity to be born as a human,

And have gained a human body.

So we are proud that we have been born in this life.

When it comes to the time of our birthday,

We may recollect the merit and parami that we have made.

And we make more merit every day.

Though we don't go to the monastery every day,

We have the chance to recollect our goodness every day.

So then we build goodness every day as well.

And we recollect that on that day,

That month,

That year,

We have made merit.

We have given alms,

Listened to Dhamma,

And have chanted and meditated.

And when we recollect this,

Our minds are joyous and radiant.

Or whatever place we are at,

And there are people who do goodness,

We rejoice with their merit and goodness that they have done,

At the good karma they have built.

Because in the beginning,

Every mind is under the power of ignorance.

There is ignorance craving and clinging.

Every mind tries to find happiness,

But the quality of ignorance is greater,

And so it leads the mind to build all types of karma.

It may be good karma,

Or bad karma.

All of the types of karma.

So we have been born and can see that people's mindfulness and wisdom differs.

They vary in their abilities and skills.

Differ in race,

Status,

And even how one lives.

Some live in abundance,

Some in hardships.

Some have hardships in the beginning,

But later on they have abundance.

Some children have little wisdom,

But when they grow older,

And they have more wisdom.

Or some children are born and have wisdom already.

They can learn quickly and proficiently.

This is related to their old barami they have made in the past,

And in this life they have the opportunity to learn and study,

And have people teaching,

Advising,

And guiding them.

So karma,

Intentional actions,

It's something that we should learn about.

That we are the owner of our karma,

Heir to our karma,

Born of our karma,

We are related to our karma,

We are dependent on our karma.

Whatever karma that we will do,

Whether good or for ill,

Then we will receive the results of that karma.

This is the sacca dhamma,

The truth.

And we know already that bad karma gives results that we will suffer.

So we put effort into abandoning it.

The Buddha teaches us to abandon all the bad and unwholesome.

That is all the bad karma.

What we have done already,

We can't change it anymore.

So we take this present moment,

Contemplate it,

And then we restart anew.

That which is bad,

We abandon it.

The bad actions of the body.

We contemplate that if someone smokes,

Is that unskillful?

The body is a thing that we love.

Our body is loved by relatives and friends,

Parents and family.

If we damage this body by putting bad things into it,

Like cigarettes and alcohol,

Then that damages our body.

It's like we are making bad and harm for ourselves.

For those who like eating sweet things excessively,

It's like doing bad and harming ourselves as well.

So we need to try to abandon that.

But this is about living life in a simple way that we should be able to practice.

Making merit is giving beneficial things for our bodies.

And we have all learnt how to do this through getting advice from doctors.

And we need to be determined to practice it.

And the actions which do no harm on a more refined level is about silodhamma,

Moral conduct.

Like we have the five moral precepts.

Today we haven't formally taken up the precepts,

But we've determined to keep them.

We can determine to take it up by oneself.

And the five precepts is the important foundation and support.

The benefit of sila is that it gives rise to samadhi,

Meditative concentration.

The samadhi that is well established will promote onto knowledge and understanding into the dhamma that is deep.

We will understand the sacca dhamma,

The truth of reality,

In a deep way.

To the point where we're able to make the mind purified.

And so we need to abandon the actions of body and speech that are bad.

But though we may have determined to give them up already,

It isn't that we'll be able to give it up straight away.

We need to try and make an effort.

Wherever there is effort,

Then that is where success is.

We've heard this from when we were a child.

We will be able to escape from suffering because of effort.

Like Mahajanaka had effort.

He was swimming in the vast sea and he could reach the shore.

We have learnt about it in the text and have faith in that.

But that is the effort of the Buddha.

So we take it as our guiding principle,

In that we will bring up effort in our hearts.

We try,

Are diligent and have forbearance.

And all the humans that are born,

Are they completely human?

Because there are many people that are born.

But to be completely human,

It has to be someone who has goodness.

Who is imbued with good qualities.

Someone who builds good karma and has sila.

They have a higher mind.

If most people in this world are humans,

If the leaders are humans,

Then the world will be peaceful and calm.

There's no harming of one another.

People live together and share.

Like we give dana and we have very high minds.

We share a part of our wealth.

We make merit and goodness.

And we can see our minds are at ease.

It's a food for the heart.

We've heard about those who have wealth,

Having abundant food.

They don't need to work.

They just receive an inheritance from their ancestors.

In one day they can eat all the food they like,

Whenever they want.

They have housing and medicines.

But they look like they have no happiness.

They aren't happy.

Because this is food for the body.

The house is a shelter for the body.

But the shelter for the heart and the food for the heart,

They don't have.

The food for the heart is goodness.

We change our wealth,

Or we give food.

And it's merit.

The merit that arises is a food for the heart.

Sila is a food for the heart.

It builds good karma.

And especially those who like chanting,

They really enjoy chanting.

According to the suttas,

When they die,

They will be reborn in the Yama heaven realm.

It is higher than the Tawatingsa realm.

The Yama realm is where the Buddhist male and female disciples reside,

Who like chanting,

Meditation,

Samadhi,

Those who like peace.

Because they reflect on the virtues of the Buddha,

Dhamma and Sangha often.

Their minds are joyous and bright.

So the benefits of recollecting,

Chanting and meditating in this way are great.

Especially in one day,

We may have the chance to recite and chant Ittipiso 108 times.

We do it with mindfulness.

We do it until the mind is peaceful and still in samadhi.

Then we can be just left with one word,

Butto.

We mentally repeat the one word,

Butto,

Until the mind is firmly with butto.

And the mind stops its repetition of the meditation word,

Butto.

Then the mind becomes peaceful and samadhi arises.

This is merit arising.

This is the merit arising from meditation.

This is building good karma through meditation.

At the time we are meditating like this,

The mind is not thinking to ill will of harming.

It's not going to sensual delight in forms,

Sounds,

Odors,

Tastes,

Bodily sensations and mind objects.

The mind is bright.

It's not sleepy,

Not scattered with other things.

We have been having a mind that is disturbed.

Then we have a mind free of disturbance because it's with butto.

Or we use the meditation object that we are skilled at.

It can be sugato or sammasambuddho.

Some Krupa Ajhons,

Great teachers,

They repeat the words butthang saranam kacchami.

We may not understand why this works.

The meditation word is a mind object for the mind.

We repeat it until the mind is peaceful.

And then it's all the same.

It is Buddha nusati,

Dhamma nusati,

Sangha nusati,

Recollection of the Buddha,

Dhamma,

Sangha.

And we can even recollect our dhana,

Generosity,

Often.

We recollect the sila that we've kept.

It's chagga nusati and sila nusati,

Recollection of generosity and morality.

The mind can become peaceful and still.

It can be samadhi.

It can be upajjara samadhi,

Access concentration,

Without difficulty.

So we should try to train our minds like this.

One who gives dhana already has bliss and fullness of heart and joy.

So may you recollect your making of merit and generosity often.

We then see the virtues of the sammasambuddha and we continue to sit meditation.

The mind is peaceful and still easily.

There is a lot of merit arising as well.

There is merit arising from meditation.

It's like we are building good karma.

And this good karma will follow us in this existence and the next.

So we should recollect on karma constantly.

The monastics have the chant that they do and are taught to contemplate a lot on is that we are the owners of our karma and so on.

This is so that we bring up determination in abandoning all the bad and to building merit and purifying the mind.

Being born in whichever level of the divine realm as a deva,

It must be goodness that leads one there.

The karma is an energy in the heart.

It has a lot of sufficient quality to go to the different realms.

But one who does very heavy karma,

Then that heavy karma will make the mind go to a heavy realm,

A realm of suffering,

Because of having harmed other people or other beings.

Then it pulls one down to go to a place of suffering,

Hardships and various difficulties.

What do we do to be free from all karma?

Because doing acts of karma,

There has to be the result of karma arising.

Those who can be free from it are those whose minds are purified.

The sammasambuddha has been liberated from karma.

He is above the world already,

Above merit and above evil.

Because if it's merit,

Then it leads one to be born in a good realm.

The excellent merit is samadhi bhavana,

Meditation,

Which leads one to be a form of formless Brahma,

God.

But it's a worldly Brahma that is going around the cycle of birth and death.

And even the Brahma that has purity,

The Brahmas of the Suddhavasa realm,

Who are anagamis,

Non-returners,

Who have a lot of happiness,

But they haven't been fully liberated,

Being an arahant.

But the sammasambuddha has been rightly awakened.

He is free from all realms and births.

And all the arahants practiced following the Dhamma that the Buddha taught and were liberated from realms and births as well.

But that which follows is a bit of leftover karma.

Yet it's not able to make their minds shaken at all.

Because they are unattached to rupa and nama,

Material and mental phenomena,

Anymore.

There's no sense of self anymore.

Like one arahant monk who had a result of karma arising that he could never eat his full.

But for his last meal,

Venerable Sariputta held onto his bowl and made him eat food until he was full.

And then he went to Nibbana.

So people have different results of karma.

And we need to contemplate about this karma a lot,

So that we will build good karma.

We here have been born with a body that is a human and a mind that is a human as well,

Which is hard to find in this world.

So may you be determined to build goodness and good qualities.

Build good karma.

Have metta,

Goodwill and compassion towards each other.

In this world,

There are many people who are ignorant,

So don't make it worse for them.

There are many who get good things,

And we rejoice with them.

Because the mind that is bad,

It's because of ignorance.

It's not because of them wanting to do it.

But the power of the mind is too small,

And the ignorance has more power.

So it leads people to want to do those actions.

And so we don't blame and be harsh to them.

We understand that it is their karma,

And that they have to receive their own karma.

So may we try to stay within good karma and abandon bad karma,

And make the mind purified.

And then we will meet with the Dhamma of the Sama Sambuddha.

May you all grow in generosity,

Morality and meditation.

May you succeed in your life and have good health.

May you grow in blessings.