Beyond Regret - Four Steps To Purifying Past Behaviours

This week I wanted to talk about a practice found in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition called the Four Opponent Powers,

Or the Four Remedial Powers They're a way of purifying negative karma,

Or we could say,

Purifying negative actions But they're also a practical way of working on and improving past behaviours that we would like to change Firstly,

Remembering that karma simply means action Karma refers to volitional action,

And then the effects of that which are experienced primarily in terms of our experience of reality So karma is the cause,

It is the action,

Not necessarily the result It's the volitional action,

Not the result of that action And so when we engage in any action,

We create the causes to experience results or consequences Things that happen to us are not random according to the Buddhist view,

But there are causes and conditions And so in general what the Buddha saw is that if we do positive actions we experience positive results,

And if we do negative actions,

Then we experience negative results This is not something that the Buddha said he created It is a natural law,

Like gravity,

He simply saw it and then described it to us And it's a practical,

Logical view,

That is,

If we were to imagine that you put poison and pesticides into the rivers and then the river water became undrinkable That's not some punishment given to you by a god or the universe It's a consequence or a result of an action And so this is the Buddhist view of karma And karma is difficult for us to see because unlike,

Perhaps this example here that's quite obvious,

The poison and the rivers Karma can span over several lifetimes,

And the original action or seed that then gives rise to a consequence might not be immediately obvious to us And so putting that aside,

Whether we have confidence yet in this idea of karma I think that we can all acknowledge and agree on what is immediately obvious to us That those negative or harmful actions,

Behaviours that we engage in,

Tend to perpetuate further negativity and further harm Firstly,

By becoming habit For example,

The first time in our life that we responded to a situation by raising our voice and shouting When we did that,

We planted a seed in our mind The next time we encountered a similar situation,

Our mind had an option available to us A neural pathway in our brain And so we likely responded in the same way And then over our life,

The more and more that we've engaged in this action,

The stronger and stronger this habit has then become This first action,

This first time,

Which was unconscious,

We learnt that behaviour from our society,

From those around us It is then given rise to an unconscious negative habit,

Which causes repeated harm to ourselves and to others over the short term,

But also the long term So how do we work with this?

How do we work with these negative habits,

These habits we would like to change?

And if we have confidence in karma,

How do we stop these negative actions from creating further suffering for ourselves in this lifetime and potentially future lifetimes?

And so these four opponent powers,

Regret,

Reliance,

Remedy and resolve,

Offer us a directed way of purifying this negative action,

A practical way Lama Zopa said that we should engage in a purification by way of these four opponent powers at the end of every day To clear up whatever negative karma we've created that day as well as any negativities from the past He says we would be foolish not to So let's go through these four,

First the power of regret Regret is a mental state,

First we need to recognise that the action we engaged in was negative Why?

Because it led to harm for ourselves and others,

And because it will bring us problems further on And so then with this recognition,

Okay,

This action was negative,

It caused harm Then comes an intelligent and constructive mental state,

This feeling of regret or remorse for the action But what's important here is that regret is not guilt,

Guilt and shame are not intelligent and they're not constructive So what is the difference?

Well with guilt,

We equate our very self,

Our view of who we are with our behaviour We feel,

I'm bad and I will always be this way So guilt focuses on what a bad person we are,

What a horrible person we are,

What an arrogant,

Angry,

Horrible person we are Guilt doesn't focus on the behaviour,

It doesn't really care about the behaviour necessarily It only cares about punishing and loathing our self for being so bad So guilt may cause us to feel that we don't deserve to be happy Guilt doesn't help us change our behaviour,

It only gets stuck in this cycle of further negativity It is the stick that we beat ourselves with And so guilt tends to be more emotional rather than rational,

Rather than intelligent Rather than looking ahead,

How do I change this behaviour?

Guilt gets stuck on what a bad person I am,

So it's not helpful So regret here,

This mind that we're talking about is constructive,

Helpful,

Intelligent Based on understanding karma,

Based on understanding cause and effect Based on understanding that negative actions cause suffering to ourself and to others The problems and unwanted challenges that we've experienced in this life,

According to the Buddhist view Are the results of prior negative actions And our negative actions now will ripen in further problems and further unwanted challenges So acknowledging this,

If we take this as a theory,

A working hypothesis Then we feel the sense of regret And so I see often that this Buddhist view of regret is likened to the way that we would feel If we found out that we had swallowed some poison Afraid of getting sick,

Afraid of losing our life,

We would drop everything We would rush to find a solution,

To rid our body of that poison Save ourselves from future suffering And in the same way,

Negative actions,

Not only causing harm to other people But they poison our own mind,

They poison our practice They bring unwanted troubles in the future And so understanding this,

Then we regret our mistakes From the depths of our heart,

Take action to cultivate positivity instead To neutralise,

To replace that negativity with something positive And so the second is the power of reliance And reliance,

This stage,

Will mean different things to different people If we consider ourselves Buddhist or we're exploring the Buddhist path Then it means reliance on the three jewels,

The Buddha,

The Dharma and the Sangha Just like if we were physically sick,

We would rely upon a doctor to help us And so too with negative actions,

We rely upon our spiritual teacher The Buddha,

The Dharma,

The Sangha Because they can help us overcome our negativity They can help us cultivate greater positivity,

Greater well-being in our life This doesn't mean that the Buddha or the Sangha removes your suffering That your spiritual teacher removes your suffering,

That they fix you Just like a doctor doesn't fix you They offer you the medicine Just like the Dharma is the medicine,

It is up to us to take it So at this stage,

The power of reliance,

We recall the teachings We recall the qualities that are emphasised by our teacher and the three jewels And we recommit ourselves to them We recognise,

Yes,

These are the qualities I aspire to These are the teachings that help me And we rely upon them If instead of reliance on a Buddha,

Perhaps you have confidence in a God or the universe Some other higher being,

Then you can use this And if we don't have any of these No confidence in a Buddha or no confidence in a God or the universe or something else Then we simply remind and rededicate ourselves to whatever positive goals we aspire to live by So bring to mind those ethical principles that you believe in but have acted against And remember what are the reasons you believe in them What are the reasons you want to live that kind of life Recommit yourself to them Rely upon the practices that lead you towards that well-being,

That way of living Then we have the power of remedy or the power of the opponent force This is about doing something positive in order to counteract the negative energy that we have created So here,

This is generally anything positive that can oppose whatever gave rise to the negativity So for example,

If you hurt someone because of anger Then we could contemplate and cultivate compassion for ourselves and for that person Compassion is the antidote to anger towards someone If we stole something because of greed Then we cultivate contentment or gratitude that opposes the negative force of greed Remedy here also includes practical things So if you shouted and screamed at somebody,

Apologizing Making amends,

Picking up the broken pieces In the Tibetan tradition it's taught that visualizing Buddhas or Bodhisattvas Reciting their name mantras That these can be powerful tools of virtue and purification of negative karma And so there are practices where we visualize the Buddha Or particularly common in the Tibetan tradition,

Vajrasattva or Avalokiteshvara And then we recite their name mantras We could also engage in meditations on love,

Meditations on compassion Or there can be engaged actions such as donating material things Donating our time,

Helping others,

Rescuing animals,

Rescuing insects who are in danger As we said,

It's anything that is positive Anything that gives rise to positivity,

To virtue in our mind That neutralizes and opposes that negative energy And then fourth is the power of resolve This is the resolve,

The commitment,

The determination to not commit that action again And this is so important This really perhaps is the key Without this resolve,

It's very hard to change It's very hard to give up our old habits If we just regret our actions but then don't do anything about them Don't resolve to change,

Nothing will change So with heavier negative actions Perhaps killing,

Stealing If we sincerely regret them,

We recognize why they were negative We recognize why they harmed It might be easy to resolve to never do them again And so at this stage of resolve We could have that resolve,

That determination I will not kill,

I will not steal again But those actions that are more habitual Those actions that are more hard to stop Lying,

Losing our temper Then we need to be realistic We don't just say I resolve I will never lose my temper ever again in my life This is perhaps setting ourselves up for failure So it's better than to resolve to not do them for shorter periods of time Five minutes,

I resolve to not lose my temper for the next five minutes With this particular person Or an hour,

Or a day,

Or a week And then we gradually increase the length of time of those promises A half day and so on And so this determination is what gives us the strength that we need It is this determination,

As we hold it in mind That then enables us to be mindful of future behavior and make a change With this power of resolve we then remain conscientious You are mindful,

You're aware,

You're alert of your behavior You're aware of the commitment you have made So this,

These four opponent powers I think is such a wonderful and practical way of changing our mind And changing our behavior And if we come back to this example of the habit of raising our voice Shouting when we're angry This habit that we've built up since we were young It's by recognizing now the downsides of this behavior as we engage in it Recognizing those downsides,

Regretting it Replacing it with new constructive behaviors New habits,

New ways of thinking And resolving to catch ourselves and not engage in the action again That we purify ourselves of this habit and cultivate new ones In her book on meditation,

Kathleen Macdonald says that This purification process is basically a psychological one Lama Yeshe says that it is our mind And on the basis of that,

Our actions That creates the negativity And so it is our mind that transforms it by creating positive energy And although in Buddhism we rely on Buddha's methods for purification It is not the Buddha who purifies us We ourselves,

As Lama says,

Do the work We created the karma and only we can clean it up