Session 024: Learn About Karma To Live A Happier Life
Learn About Karma To Live A Happier Life
Dhamma Talk + Guided Meditation Session 024: June 17th, 2020, by Sophia Ojha Ensslin and Cristof Ensslin
Banner Photo by Holger Link on Unsplash
Introduction
In today’s presentation, I will be sharing what I learnt in my two day online retreat over the past weekend. Venerable Robina Courtin was teaching a class in partnership with Shantideva Center in New York and they broadcast it live. It was free but with a suggested donation of only $20 per session and there were four sessions in total. So for less than $100 we could have a live mini retreat right from our home. This would not have been possible before COVID as these were designed to be in-person sessions.
Anyways, she talked about a lot of things but one thing that she pointed out was that we must “internalize Karma”. Understanding how karma works is of a huge benefit and we can truly understand how things happen to us and how we are the “boss” as she says. By understanding Karma and the process of karma, we can understand our suffering, other people’s suffering and we can make intentional changes to free ourselves from suffering. It’s very juicy and very powerful and, might I add, very healing, too. Because as soon as we understand the mechanisms of karma, we empower ourselves to create meaningful changes in our lives.
Some patterns of our behaviour become very evident when we shine the light of karma on it. And this helps dismantling old, harmful, unhealthy patterns that keep repeating over and over again in different ways.
So all of what I am sharing is only a small glimpse of the many things she was teaching. I have also heavily relied on the course notes pdf which she gave us as part of this mini-course. And so none of this is original thought from me and Cristof, rather it is our understanding of what was taught to us. And so there are holes in our presentation as a result of our status as students.
I invite you to look at the PDF which I have linked in point #4 in the Resources section at the end of this handout. And of course make your own research and studies on the matter. With that let’s get into it.
So in this presentation we will talk about Karma:
The four ways that karma ripens in the present
How present actions leave seeds in the mind that will ripen in the future as one’s experiences
An example of this as it plays out in life
And finally how we can use this understanding to create a better future for ourselves.
Dhamma Talk by Sophia
Meditation Guided by Sophia
Handout
This week we have a 9-page handout. It is posted left/below as blog content for you. Plus, you can download it as PDF by clicking on the following button:
Karma Means Intention
We start with the word, Karma. Karma is a Sanskrit word. In Pali language the word is Kamma. It means action. It’s mainly about intentional or volitional action. What do we mean when we say action? Action includes actions of the mind (thoughts), verbal actions (words, written or spoken), and actual physical actions.Here, thoughts are very important as well. Because as Venerable Robina says, “Everything we think, say or do, leaves a mental imprint in our mind.” This is what creates you.
Intentional action -> mental imprint -> future experience
In other words whatever the seed, such is the fruit of that seed. The intentional action is the seed, our mind the fertile ground, our future experience the fruit. Would we expect a peach to grow from a lemon tree? No. A peach ripens on a peach tree, a lemon tree produces lemons.
Very simple, right? Just like that, we create our own life.
The Buddha basically says: you’re in charge of your own destiny, you are responsible for that which has happened to you in the past and right now. Not your parents, siblings, friends, neighbors, boyfriends, spouses, colleagues, not even politicians. You are.
We need to know our mind to use this concept in our favor. That’s the only thing we can change.
Venerable Robina Courtin writes:
“Yes, certain people’s external conditions make it quite tough. If you’re in prison and you can’t open that door, you can say: ‘well, I can’t help being angry. I’m surrounded by mean people.’ But the ones who are really practicing [karma], don’t say that. They know that this is their physical condition and this is the result of their karma. So they will adapt themselves to that condition and still work on their minds.”
Anything physical is really there, of course. But how we deal with it, our attitude to our circumstances, we can actively shape. Instead of saying “it’s not my fault, I’m the victim, it’s not fair”, we can take accountability. Yes, that takes courage as it may be very painful at times.
Buddha says: “Your consciousness comes from you in the past, not your parents.” So, our future present is something we can shape in this moment right now.
Whether good or bad things happen (and we never seem to be upset when good things happen), we say: “I created the cause to have these experiences.”
Remember, watermelon seeds create watermelon plants and fruits. Apple seeds create apple trees and apples. Karmic seeds are the same. Karma is a constant, continuous process of cause and effect. It happens every moment, dozens of times per second. According to Tibetan Buddhism, there are four ways that past karma ripens in the present and present actions leave seeds in the mind that will ripen in the future as one’s experiences:
Fully ripened result: a rebirth
Actions similar to the cause: our tendendies
Experiences similar to the cause: how people treat us, what we experience etc.
Environmental karma: how our environment appears to us
Juicy, right? Let’s look into the details of these now.
Our Birth
Our past lives’ karma caused us to be reborn. While we conventionally think that mom and dad made us, the Buddhist view is that mom and dad are simply the “how”, but not the “why” we came into our current human form.
For a human rebirth, in the stream of consciousness that we are a strong sense of morality must have ripened at the moment of death in our last life.
We have to be aware that a human life is very precious. It’s a unique opportunity to actively work on our karma. Most other life forms don’t have that opportunity. We can be grateful for and be sure about some very wholesome karmic seeds that we have sown in the past.
However, as we can easily see, one human life and that of another don’t play out the same. Mother Theresa, Yo-Yo Ma, Jeff Bezos, and Adolf Hitler all had enough positive karmic seeds ripening for a human rebirth, so how come their lives couldn’t have been any more different?
Our Tendencies And Habits
Whether we’re very caring, supreme at music, phenomenal in business or horrible haters, we exhibit tendencies simply from having done them before. We know this: when we do something over and over again, we become good at it. We become habituated and habitually good at whatever we do regularly. These habits are obvious within our own life times.
The Buddha says that this concept also applies from rebirth to rebirth. We may say: “I got my cooking skills from my Mom,” or “I’m musically talented like my Dad.” But while some aspects of ourselves may resemble those of our parents, parental emulation clearly explains only the minority of our characteristics. We are good at something, whether at music, love, killing, sports or jealousy, because we have sown the seeds for them by doing them in the past.
Our Experiences
As you sow you shall reap. This is the third way our karma ripens. People you meet, parents you get, teachers, abusers, assaulters, benefactors: all the actions (remember: that’s mental, verbal, and physical actions) that are done to us, we have done to others in the past. Simple as that. Physical illnesses and food not being digestible, harming us instead of nourishing us, etc.
So, we are in control. While we cannot change what is happening to us right now anymore, we can influence what will happen to us in the future. Good or bad: it’s in our mind, mouth, and hands. Moral behaviour with a peaceful, kind, and gentle intention will lead to good experiences in the future.
BY THE WAY:
Volition is important. Doing a good deed with a bad motive behind it is not going to give you the fruits of good deeds but rather the seeds of that bad motive.
And also, one may think, “I never raged and yelled at anyone in my life. How come this person is yelling and shouting at me?”. I have wondered that about certain karmic fruits and what I realize is this: not only do you sow a certain kind of seed, the fruit of that seed is multiple times bigger. Just like planting one seed of watermelon leads to not just one watermelon but many many watermelons, each with hundreds of seeds that give rise to even more watermelons. So it’s not one-to-one, instead it is one-to-infinite. Think about that. Sowing one good seed will result in multiple good fruits!!!
Plus, doing good with a clean volition usually creates instant karma as well. We don’t necessarily have to wait for the fruits in the future. The fruits are right there in the now because it makes us feel good right then and there! Definitely worth it.
Our Environment
Environmental Karma is the way the physical world shows up. The calm and quiet surroundings. The friendly people around you. The blossoming flowers. All of that is environmental karma. When things in your environment like air pollution or a tsunami are causing you suffering, that is all a result of negative karma. When things work harmoniously and smoothly, that’s also karma, just a positive one.
So, that’s how the four ways karma ripens. That you are born a human, the family that you were born into, the family and friends who met along the way - those that were helpful and those that harmed, the way your tendencies show up and how the physical world around you is, that’s all a result of our actions in the past. They are the cause for it.
You Are The Boss - Venerable Robina Says
“You are the boss,” says Venerable Robina. Not anyone else, not even the Buddha. The Buddha teaches a way out of the dark into the light, but we have to walk it ourselves. He is like a doctor. You go to the doctor and she tells you that this is your affliction and this is the remedy. That’s it. You are the one who has to take the remedy and do the actions she recommends.
Venerable continues: “So if I am the boss of my own present experience, if I am the cause of it, then indeed I can be the cause of my future experiences - which is why you should then check up: do I like this life? Do I like the people punching me in the nose? Do I like having people being angry at me? Do I like being depressed and angry and jealous and poor and living in an ugly environment and all polluted or horrible? No, I don’t. Then, okay, there must be causes of this; what were they?” And then we simply don’t do them again.
Just like you wouldn’t continue eating or drinking or inhaling a certain substance after you learn that it is poisonous for your body. It may be hard to change that habit, but it’s the only logical thing to do. And you change your habit, once you truly see the harmful results it has had for you or for someone else.
Example of How Past Action of Killing Ripens
In the class notes, Robina gives an example of the four ways that past action of killing (whether it’s killing humans, catching fish or swatting mosquitoes) would ripen. I recommend referring to her work for more details but in summary she says, paraphrased:
If past action of killing ripens at the time of death, then one gets born into a very suffering type of life - that in the animal realm or spirit. We got born as a human so it was the morality that ripened at the time of death.
The second way the karma of killing ripens is as a tendency to kill. Robina points out that lots of humans kill as they have the tendency to keep killing.
The third way that killing ripens is called an experience similar to the cause, so it’s that we get killed or we die young or get sick. Venerable says, “..anything that’s an experience where we get the opposite of health or the opposite to the length of life is the result of harming or killing”.
The fourth way, the past action of killing ripens is the environmental karma - it’s an environment which instead of nurturing us, harms us. Polluted water, polluted air - these are results of past actions of killing.
Two Levels Of Practice
So now that we can identify the causes of the problem we know how to fix them. The main cause of our suffering is karma and delusion and it boils down to delusion. Delusion means here not being aware of Karma being at work all the time, impersonally, non-judgmentally, like a law of physics. Because of delusion, we do negative actions and harm ourselves and others.
How do we practice? In these two levels:
First level is in relation to delusion - On the daily level, we refrain from creating more negative karma. As Venerable says, “So if someone punches you in your nose, you at least protect your mind to not create more negative karma in day-to-day life...That’s our ongoing, everyday practice, watching our body, speech and mind like a hawk every minute.” This is non-reaction to negative karma ripening.
Second level is in relation to existing karma - There are already countless past seeds that are in our mind, already sitting in our mind. We need to get ahead of the curve and purify them before they ripen. Here the purification practice that comes into play. Part of purifying old bad karma is creating new, good karma. We tune our intention of anything we think, say or do to the Wholesomeness Channel: no greed, no ill will, no harm.
Working With Laws Of Nature
Karma is not about reward or punishment. It’s a natural law.
On this planet, there’s gravity. We learn to work with that by holding tightly onto the railing of an overlook over a steep abyss. We learn to work with that by holding our cup of tea in a way that it doesn’t spill anything. We learn to work with that by building giant steel vessels that can swim or fly that use the laws of physics constructively.
We don’t blame gravity for shattering our most precious piece of china, do we?
When a small maple tree seed helicopters to the ground, it will sprout and grow into a giant maple tree. It will never grow into a rhododendron, a locust tree or anything else. If the conditions are right, it will grow into a maple tree and a maple tree only.
So it is with our own existence, our own habits, our own experience, as well as the environment that we encounter. We will harvest only what seeds we have sown in the past.
Continuous mindfulness is the key. Then we can do the right thing all the time. The more mindful moments we produce, the more good karma we can make and live a good and happy life in harmony with those around us.
Let’s practice our mindfulness now by sitting in meditation, and then, make sure to live every day meaningfully, meaning with the three intentions as the basis of every waking moment:
making peace with what is right now, meaning accepting fully what we have, what we don’t have, and what we experience, as a result of our past karmic seeds, (MAKE PEACE)
exhibiting true kindness to ourselves and all beings that we encounter in thoughts and person, (BE KIND)
gently treating and speaking and thinking about all and everyone, including ourselves. (BE GENTLE)
MAKE PEACE, BE KIND and BE GENTLE is the mantra of Ajahn Brahm, from Bodhinyana Monastery, Buddhist Society of Western Australia, and you can learn a lot more about that approach in his videos recordings of his retreats online: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rz7F7s0iics&list=PLf9HOK_Rf1M4h83zHMLew-UaGjA0oRG0f
Resources
1. All resources on understanding death and dying: https://fpmt.org/death/
2. No Time to Lose: How to How to Help Your Loved Ones Enjoy Death and Go Happily to Their Next Rebirth147 page ebook from the 6 day Residential Course in Dharmsala, India. October 2018: https://fpmt.org/wp-content/uploads/death/How_to_Help_Your_Loved_Ones_Enjoy_Death_and_Go_Happily_to_Their_Next_Rebirth.pdf
3. Meeting Death with Wisdom Ebook: https://shop.fpmt.org/Meeting-Death-with-Wisdom-eBook-PDF_p_2672.html
4. The Source of today’s class text: The Heart Sutra: How to loosen the grip of ego-grasping. Shantideva, New York. June 12-14, 2020 with Ven. Robina Courtin: https://shantidevanyc.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/The-Heart-Sutra-Loosening-the-Grip-of-Ego-Grasping.pdf