Dharma talk on Karma and the importance of ethics

Welcome to tonight's Dhamma talk.

The Dhamma talk tonight is entitled karma and the importance of ethics.

So it's mostly about karma.

I hope I talk a little bit about the importance of ethics.

So karma is often understood the common understanding of karma.

Karma is the Pali terms K-A-M-M-A and karma is the Sanskrit term.

But the popular understanding of this term is that what goes around comes around.

Or another way of saying it is what we give we get.

However,

Karma literally means actions.

And according to Peter Harvey,

Karma is often likened to a seed.

And the two words for karmic results,

Or the karmic result is vipaka and phala.

Respectively meaning,

Vipaka means ripening and phala means fruit.

So an action is like a seed that will mature through own natural processes and ripen and come to fruit of something.

So karma literally means actions.

And karma is,

Oh sorry,

And the result,

The results of the,

The result in the certain fruits that come from that seed is accrued to the doer of the actions,

If that makes sense.

So it's like karma is this impulse along a particular life trajectory,

But it's confined to the doer of the actions.

So karma is the psychological impulse behind an action.

And it is that which sets about the causes of culminating in a karmic fruit.

Actions must be intentional,

If they're about to cultivate or sorry,

Result in a karmic fruit that there must be an intention behind it.

But I'd like to add here that sometimes we may not have an intention,

But through heedlessness,

We may create a whole causal chain of very unfortunate results,

Karmic consequences,

Not karmic consequences,

But consequences.

And I think heedlessness in and of itself has a karmic fruit,

If that makes sense.

So an intentional actions or karma is divided into wholesome and unwholesome.

Wholesome karma is the actions that ripen into unwholesome fruit,

Unwholesome results or unwholesome consequences.

And wholesome karma bears wholesome fruit.

And another popular belief about karma is that it causes everything.

It's like,

It's behind everything,

But it's not like that.

In reality,

Karma is just a part of the picture of a range of different things coming together.

And in reality,

The way we are,

Is the result of causes and conditions.

Many conditions beyond our control,

Many factors beyond our control,

Like our genetics,

Where we're born,

Where we're raised,

How we're raised,

And so on.

The country we're born in,

The nation we're born in,

And so on.

And karma plays a part in this,

However.

It is a significant part,

But it's not the whole thing.

So karma involves a choice to act or not act,

Basically.

It is karma,

And we can't choose our genes,

We can't choose our genetic makeup,

We can't choose lots of things that affect us and impact on the way life unfolds.

But it is possible that we make a choice about wholesome and unwholesome actions.

You know,

Disasters happen.

I know a common belief would be that people who are caught up in disasters,

For example,

It's the accumulation of lots of bad karma,

But that's actually not true.

If you think about it like this,

That it's just a bummer,

Really,

That a bunch of things have come together,

A bunch of causes and conditions have come together and it results in this horrible situation.

But it's not about,

It's not the result of our karma necessarily.

The way we respond to those disasters,

Those situations,

Does actually produce karma.

Like we can respond to them in a wise way,

Or we can respond to them in an unwise way.

So it's beyond our unenlightened capacity to work out what fruits result from what particular actions or particular karma.

But it is possible to discern what is wise and unwise actions,

As I was mentioning.

Karma is not fixed or strictly deterministic.

And it's not rigid and mechanical.

It's,

It's actually quite flexible,

Dynamic and a dynamic process and it's quite fluid.

And not all present conditions,

Not all conditions that are present can be ascribed to karma,

As I was mentioning earlier.

Just because we become ill,

Say with COVID,

For example,

It's not because in some past life we've produced some evil karma.

It's because we've been exposed to a virus and we have a body that would become ill.

It's caused some conditions beyond our control,

In many respects,

Putting aside the fact that we could wear masks and so on.

Actually,

That could be a karmic response,

The fact that we choose not to wear masks,

Say in a crowded place.

We could,

That action could result in an unfortunate consequence.

So there's a recollection that's used in the development of equanimity.

And it goes something like this.

I am the owner of my karma.

And the word I use actually,

When I recite this,

Or when I use it at retreats that I run and so on.

I'm the owner of my actions,

Heir to my actions,

Born of my actions,

Related to my actions,

Abide supported by my actions.

Whatever actions I shall be,

I shall do,

I shall be the heir of those actions.

And this relates to other beings as well.

So all beings are the owners of their actions,

Heir to their actions,

Born of their actions,

Related to their actions,

Abide supported by their actions.

Whatever actions they shall do of those actions,

They shall be the heirs.

And as Patrick Carney says,

I am what I have done,

And I will be what I do.

I think that's quite a nice little summary of it.

And according to Thich Nhat Hanh,

He says,

Well,

He,

He did say,

He's passed away now,

Of course.

My actions are the ground that I stand on.

So beings' actions are the ground that they stand on.

Our actions are our only possession.

They're the only thing that follows us around.

The only thing we can really own.

So equanimity,

This recollection that I just recited,

Is something I've used almost daily,

In combination with I'm of the nature to age,

I'm of the nature to have illness,

I'm of the nature to die.

All that is mine,

Beloved and pleasing,

Shall one day be part of,

From me.

And then I'd go on to say,

I'm the owner of my actions,

Heir to my actions,

Born of my actions.

It's a wisdom quality,

Because it shows the way things are.

It talks about the law of nature,

That there's no personality behind all this.

But it is a law of nature that karma unfolds like this.

And we have an intention with every action we do.

The fact that I'm just scratching my forehead,

For example,

Right now,

There's an intention about that.

The fact that I'm moving my hand around in space,

There's an intention behind that.

The fact that we're kind of sitting where we are,

There's an intention behind that.

Every action has an intention.

And our choice with whether we follow through with our intentions,

Or not follow through with intentions.

Well,

It's an imperative that we have a choice.

Sorry,

I should say it like that.

And it's quite complicated to understand all the results of particular actions.

And this,

This skill was only the capacity of the Buddha.

In addition,

It's also difficult to understand how some people seem to get away with a lot of harm,

Yet seem to prosper.

And I'm thinking of,

You know,

Just the other day,

I noticed a media magnate resign,

And he's caused a lot of,

I think,

I think he's caused a lot of harm,

But he's,

His wealth is growing,

And he looks like he's really happy and so on.

Well,

He seems really happy,

Perhaps.

So it's kind of difficult to understand that.

And it's also difficult to understand how people who do lots of wholesome karma seem to suffer still.

However,

It is a law,

It is a law,

And it's,

It's something that is destined to happen there.

It's the law of actions have consequences.

That's what it is.

And it seems to become,

It becomes very experiential,

When we begin to meditate.

It becomes experiential when we begin to meditate,

Because as we're meditating,

Our karma seems to come up,

It's like,

It's ripened,

It starts to emerge for us,

And it's ripening,

Ripening in a particular way,

With awareness,

It can be in ripen in a particular way.

So about 40 years ago,

And this is what I was going to mention,

I was married and I had an affair.

And the shame and remorse of the suffering was immense to my,

To both myself,

And the affair,

The person I had an affair with,

As well as my wife at the time.

So it was,

It was really painful at the time,

And it caused a lot of embarrassment,

Or more than that shame,

Actually.

And it still causes shame,

Up until this day.

This is 40 years ago.

And,

You know,

The immediate consequences of it was that my wife left me,

We broke up.

And I was treated badly.

I was called a cheat and all sorts of other things.

I felt quite like embarrassed too,

That other people knew.

And about 30 years ago,

My ex-wife,

We get along quite well,

Very well.

We share four,

Three grandchildren.

We sure share grandchildren right now.

But she rang me about 30 years ago and said,

Malcolm,

I forgive you.

I forgive you.

But it really didn't come home until I was on a retreat just earlier this year.

I was on a two month retreat and it was broken up by,

The retreat was broken up by me visiting my,

One of my son's,

Going to one of my son's 40th birthday parties,

Which was a big event.

It was a family event.

And my ex-wife was,

Wasn't going to go because,

You know,

She's,

She's older than me and she,

She has another husband who's much older than her and she couldn't go out like that.

But I made an effort to visit her because on the retreat,

I just noticed it coming up,

You know,

This,

This remorse.

And that's the,

That's the biggest fruit for meditators of bad karma is remorse.

And remorse is one of the hindrances.

It's a,

You know,

Worry and remorse.

It's this going over something and it kind of dampens down one's capacity to move freely through meditation.

So with this remorse,

I went out of my way to visit my ex-wife.

And she greeted me happily.

And,

You know,

You know,

I met a husband.

The husband knows me very well.

And she's Thai.

So in Thai,

I asked for forgiveness.

And I noticed that it was really hard for me to say it.

Well,

Yes,

It was hard.

I was in tears.

And I was just going,

You know,

Kor,

Kor,

Upai,

Please,

Give me,

Forgive me for the harm that I've caused you.

And she just kind of reached out to me and gave me a hug.

It's all right,

Malcolm.

It's all right.

She patted me on the back.

It's all right.

You were young.

You were too young to have a family.

I mean,

I was quite young and it's okay.

So as a result,

That's been very healing for myself,

As well as her.

So that was coming from a genuine place of remorse and kind of a resolve never to do that sort of thing again,

Never to cause that sort of harm.

So you could think that one could think that I was motivated by lust when I had my affair.

But on reflection,

It was really delusion.

Because when I think about it,

I think I was under the mistaken belief that sexual expression was a spiritual pathway.

That was back 40 years ago.

I was thinking this.

And thus I fooled myself into committing unwholesome actions.

I fooled myself into justifying breaking the precepts.

I think you probably all know the precepts,

The five Buddhist precepts.

Restraint from the intention to kill living beings,

Taking that which doesn't belong to us or stealing.

Harmful speech,

Speech that is deceptive and harmful and hurtful and unconstructive.

Sensual misconduct,

And it usually relates to sexual misconduct and intoxication with substances that cloud the mind.

So they're the five precepts and I consciously broke one of those precepts.

I constantly,

Consciously violated one of those precepts,

Because I was driven by my delusion.

I was justifying it.

And we can easily fool ourselves with our delusions.

So there's a story of Angulimala.

Many of you may know this story.

I'm not sure.

Angulimala was someone in the time of the Buddha.

He was studying with a philosopher.

And he,

He was studying philosophy of some,

Some description.

And the teacher of the teacher of his philosophy said he had to go out and collect 1000 fingers.

I don't know how many it was,

But they say it's 1000.

This may be a little bit mythical.

1000 fingers of people he'd killed,

That he'd murdered.

And so Angulimala set out in the world and,

You know,

Killing people and becoming a serial murderer,

A serial killer.

And he was collecting all these fingers.

And then he was in some place where his mother heard that he was,

He was around here,

She'd heard that he was around this particular area.

And so she decided to pack a lunch,

I think,

And go out and try to bring him to his senses.

And so she went on,

She started to go out and bring him to his senses.

And the Buddha with his divine eye,

He noticed this situation happening.

And he could see that Angulimala was delusional,

And that if he killed his mother,

He would accrue really bad karma,

Like hell-like karma for a long,

Long,

Long time.

So,

So the Buddha set out to intercept,

Well,

To pass the mother.

And he did,

He managed to pass the mother.

And he walked,

He was walking along the road,

Close by where Angulimala was,

And Angulimala began to chase him,

Began to,

You know,

Try to chase him,

Catch up with him.

But no matter how fast Angulimala ran,

He couldn't catch up with the Buddha.

And Angulimala eventually yelled out,

Stop,

Stop,

Why?

Why aren't you?

Why can't I catch up to you?

And the Buddha stopped.

And the Buddha was actually doing some,

Some of his rare psychic tricks,

He was making it so that it seemed like no matter how fast Angulimala could run,

He just couldn't catch up with the Buddha.

And the Buddha was just walking.

So he made this illusion or this,

This pretense and the Buddha stopped,

Turned around and said,

Angulimala,

I've stopped,

Why haven't you?

And at that Angulimala went,

Bing.

He realised that,

You know,

He'd come to his senses.

And he went down on his knees and he,

I'm not sure what he said,

But I think it's something along the lines of please teach me,

Please be my teacher.

And what happened is that Angulimala went on to become a disciple of the Buddha.

And he became enlightened eventually,

Fully enlightened.

However,

He still carried around this shadow of karma.

I mean,

In the Dhammapada it says,

How does it go?

Our actions follow us,

Our karma follows us.

I'm not sure the exact phrase,

But it's something like our karma,

There is a law,

Our karma follows us,

Just like the wheel of a cart follows the hoofs of the ox that is pulling it.

It's like this,

This karmic,

It's an inevitable thing,

We plant a seed and there's some sort of fruit going to come about,

But it's not sure what the fruit will be.

And in my case,

The fruit that I,

I mean,

I didn't have future partners going off and having affairs,

But I had the result of my remorse,

And my shame and,

You know,

The pain in my own heart.

And so with Angulimala,

Even though he's enlightened,

He would often be beaten up on his arms round and often,

You know,

Have children throw stones at him.

And he'd always come back from an arms round,

Often with not much food,

And also with bruises and cuts and injuries from people who had beaten him up and harmed him in some way.

So it's a,

It's an interesting story.

But you know,

One thing,

One thing is very interesting about Angulimala's story is that people can,

We can kind of purify our karma,

We can work with it,

We can change it.

And there was,

There is this,

There is some training.

Yeah,

There's some,

There is a training.

But the simple solution for working with bad karma is to not to create it in the first place.

When I say bad karma,

I mean unwholesome karma,

Karma that will result in suffering for oneself or others,

In some way or other.

And there was a training that was given to Rahula.

Rahula was the son of the Buddha,

The biological son of the Buddha.

And when the Buddha went on his quest for enlightenment or awakening,

He left his comfortable home when Rahula was born.

So he went out and did his six years or he first of all went to the teachers of the time,

And,

You know,

Learned the jhanas.

But that wasn't satisfactory.

So he went on six years of ascetic practices were that were of self denial,

Then eventually woke up and then he,

You know,

Proceeded to develop what we now known as Buddhism and teach across the country.

But he,

He went back to his homeland,

He went back to his clan.

And as he was arriving in his home place,

His wife spotted him,

He said,

You know,

His previous wife.

And she said to her six year old son,

Which was also the Buddhist son,

See that man,

Go and ask him for your inheritance.

So Rahula went to the Buddha and said,

I've been told to come and get my inheritance.

So the Buddha ordained him.

He was the youngest.

He was the youngest novice in the history.

So he was the first novice.

So when he went for training,

The training was like this.

Rahula,

This is how you should train.

Before you do an action,

You should ask yourself,

Is this going to hurt somebody or not?

Is this harmful or not?

And if it's harmful,

Don't do it.

Don't do the action.

And then the training goes on.

If you find yourself in the middle of an action that's harmful,

Then stop it at that point.

And there's further training.

If you found that you've done an unwholesome action,

An action that's harmed somebody,

It could be you or could be another being,

Anybody,

Anything,

Then tell your mentor,

Talk to your mentor about it.

In other words,

Kind of have a confession about it.

Because if you can be honest to someone else,

You can be honest to yourself.

And that's,

That's part of the key.

The key to work with unwholesome karma is to,

Well,

Is to just have this awareness of what is helpful and what is useful and what is working towards the path of awakening and what is not.

And ingrain that level of mindfulness into all your waking moments so that you're careful.

It's called appamata,

I think,

In Pali,

This care,

This heedfulness,

Being careful and it translates into,

Develops into a very powerful mindfulness of every action we do.

And it,

And it ends up being that we live with impeccable ethics.

The other thing that's really helpful is to be completely honest with ourselves,

Like Rahula was,

You know,

Like it was spoken of with Rahula,

To be honest with ourselves to not fall for the deceit of the kalesa.

The kalesa,

Sometimes they're called mental defilement,

Sometimes they're called mental distortions.

Not be fooled by them,

Like I was fooled.

You know,

It's easily be,

It's easy to be fooled.

It's easy.

And here's another example of being fooled by the kalesa.

It's like you see,

You see that chocolate in the fridge.

And you think,

I'd really like a chocolate,

I need it.

You know,

It's really healthy for you.

It's got all these antioxidants and,

You know,

Blah,

Blah,

Blah.

And I've had a hard day.

I'm just eating it.

When you know the chocolates,

When you've made a vow to not take chocolate,

And you have that piece of chocolate,

It's like this little voice inside you.

It's like,

I don't know,

Maybe it's like the devil's voice.

But no,

More like Mara's voice saying,

It's all right,

Just do it.

Just do it.

It's okay.

You can justify it.

Just be careful of that.

Get to know Mara.

Mara is the Buddhist,

The Buddhist tempter.

It's Mara that tempts you to do unwholesome things.

And there's a little,

There's a little saying,

Well,

The Buddha used to say Mara all the time,

And he'd say,

I see you,

Mara.

I see you.

I know.

So get familiar with that.

Get familiar with,

You know,

Don't be deceived by Mara and also make strong and firm resolves not to act unwholesomely.

Sometimes it's good to make a resolve every day.

When,

When people go on retreats,

I don't do this,

But other teachers do this.

They have the retreatants voice the five precepts every day,

And a commitment to the five precepts.

And when,

When you're in Asia,

In the Thai monasteries,

It's a,

It's a,

It's a daily thing.

You voice the five precepts every day,

You recite them.

And also,

Asking and giving forgiveness is also very helpful.

And there's a lovely Buddhist prayer that I'm going to read,

Which is,

It's called a forgiveness prayer.

It's really,

It's really quite lovely.

And forgiveness here involves not only asking for forgiveness for any actions that we've done that may be harmful to someone.

And it is really powerful to do that.

I mean,

As an example of my,

My deviation from the precepts and being fooled,

Being tricked by Mara,

You know,

That it was okay to deviate from the precepts.

And also,

It's helpful to ask for forgiveness.

And it's helpful to freely offer forgiveness for any actions that people have done that have harmed us consciously or unconsciously.

And it's also very helpful to forgive yourself.

Because we,

We,

We are under the influence of the kilesa.

And we are,

It's like we are blinded by them.

And we are confused by them.

And it's only with wisdom that we really understand the way the kilesa,

The kilesa again are the mental,

Mental defilements or the mental distortions,

How destructive they are.

And it takes wisdom for us to overcome them.

So here is the Buddhist Prayer of Forgiveness.

And I don't know who wrote,

Like,

Who wrote this Buddhist Prayer of Forgiveness in this particular way,

But it follows a particular formula that's standard in Buddhist practices.

If I've harmed anyone,

In any way,

Either knowingly or unknowingly,

Through my own confusions,

I ask their forgiveness.

If anyone has harmed me in any way,

Either knowingly or unknowingly,

Through their own confusions,

I forgive them.

And if there is a situation I'm not yet ready to forgive,

I forgive myself for that.

And for all the ways that I harm myself,

Negate,

Doubt,

Belittle myself,

Judge or be unkind to myself through my own confusions,

I forgive myself.

So I think that's a beautiful Buddhist Prayer.

So thank you for your attention.

And I think that's enough for the Dhamma talk.