Karma and Power of Intention

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GR 2022 NY TK3B – Karma and Power of Intention

Trungram Gyalwa

Often people, I hear people say cause and effect of karma. But in the teaching, it doesn’t say cause and effect of karma. It says karma and its effect. So karma is, is the cause, right? So that’s the first thing. And then there are Buddhist karma. You know, many people think that karma is a Asian, Asian thought, Asian belief system. And then somehow it’s a, not Asian, not just Asian, but the Hindu, Buddhist Jane belief. So it’s kind of lump sum together, but actually there’s a big difference within that. For example, if you look at the Hindu text karma usually refers tos specific acts of like doing their homa, the, the fire puja special, very specific. Whereas in Buddhism, the karma is anything that, any action, any of your action of choice that creates mental imprints in, in you. So that’s karma.

So here we need to understand that the karma is is our own action that we intended to do. For whatever reason, the motivation could be anything, and that will make the lots of difference. Then in the past, we already created, we formed that karma for the future. Us the past us created karma, saw the seed of the consciousness, and took a long time, and now it’s fully ripen. And now we are born, right? So after that, earlier in the nanas 12 Nanas, 12 links we after that becoming or existence, the next thing is birth. Next thing is birth. So you’re conscious is form. Now you’re born. Once you’re born, you’re with a body. And like Buddha said, the body in our mind is prone to all the sufferings. It’s in nature. It’s built in with the sufferings. And it’s by default, right? It’s you’re guaranteed to have the i the illness and the, the aging and the death, right? So you have the continuation of that life from birth to the death, and it’s all the first. It’s the ripening, maturing, and then ending that life maturing to ending that particular life. But it’s not really ending. It just continue, right? For the next birth.

So, but there’s many details here. So karma in a way looks like, okay, it’s easy to understand. Karma means some high action that is created with her intention and so on, right? But yeah, it has, good karma has good result. Bad karma is bad result. That much is easy to understand. But the real karma is in a real life. And it’s, it is not black and white easily like that. Everything can be mixed, can be grayish, you know, whiteish gray or blackish gray and all this kind of things. So it’s, you can only tell by context, not in general.

For example there’s karma that looks like good karma, but actually it’s bad karma. And there are karma that look like bad karma, but actually it’s good karma. For example, you’re giving something, you’re giving something to someone but your intention is to destroy them, to fight. Let them fight so you can destroy both of them, or maybe maybe one side, or maybe both. So that is maybe if the intention is to harm, then giving, although is a good thing, giving is one of the, the practice that is encouraged to do. But now with that particular intention, right? It becomes bad. On the other hand you know, scolding, fighting all these things are bad, even punishing, right? But if this is for some very good cause for higher, better, bigger cause and for others’ benefits, and these actions are considered as a good karma, even the, even though it looks like bad karma. So, you know, it’s becomes very it become, you know, go into the detail then, you know, not only that there are also, it is that there are karma that you actually create by not doing it. And there are karma that you crave, but you’re not doing it. I mean, the other way, <laugh>, you know, you’re doing it, but you’re not getting it. You’re not doing it, but you’re getting it, you know, the result. So how does it happen?

Important thing goes back to what I said earlier, the intention earlier, earlier, two examples I gave about giving things and so on is is about the quality of the intention. You know, what kind of intention you have. Now, I’m talking about with the power of the intention without physical action or verbal action. And again, power of the power of the lack of intention, okay? Example. you didn’t do anything. You didn’t save a life or you didn’t you know, give things to others, but you saw somebody’s doing it and you feel really good, you feel happy about that, right? And then you really rejoice for that action.

And this creates karma. This creates a good karma if that is related to the saving life. And even though you didn’t really do it, somebody else did it, right? But you are, do you, you really approve that? You supported it. You feel good about that. So now you are actually, because your mind is so much involved with that, you are planting a seed of that action. So you can tell here how important is the intention, the karma formation. So you didn’t do it, but you, you got that result. So it is also said that yeah, you might be, you know, chanting and reciting mantra, but maybe you’re doing it mindlessly, you know without thinking about it, without you know generating Bodhi chita without meditation, without thinking about that particular deity that you’re practicing. Then the, your chant became becomes, you know, the other example that you’re doing, but you’re not getting because your mind, the intention is not there. It’s not presence.

So so when we talk about the karma creation we talked about three gates. The body, speech and mind. These actions are created through one of the three gates. You can say one of three gates, but one is must, and that is the mind. So your intention, otherwise, like, just like the chanting it doesn’t create karma. You know, your mind and body are there, but doesn’t we, when you look at the first example, your mind and body are not, I mean, your body and speech are not there when you rejoice other people doing good, but only your mind is there and it creates karma. So that’s I think important to, to know and remember.

GR 2022 NY TK3D – How to Increase or Reduce Effects of Karma – Mind Talk 2

When you know something and you creates negative karma, the result is more serious. Yeah. But when you don’t know it, when you don’t know that it’s, it’s a bad thing, and you, you did that, and the karmic result is much lighter, it makes sense, right? But at the same time, it says it’s still better to know because at the end, one who doesn’t know it’s wrong, even though it’s a, it has a lighter result for that particular karma one action. But at the end, that person who doesn’t know will end up having a heavier karma. The reason is simply that person doesn’t know. So there’s no chance that a person will try to avoid from doing it. So you end up doing a lot more, lot more, lots of light. Karmas makes heavier karma, right? So knowledge is still better and don’t think that ignorance is bliss. <Laugh> in this case, it’s knowledge is still better because the person who has knowledge, even that person creates negative karma. There’s always, at every moment that person has a chance to regret and change. Whereas if you don’t have knowledge, you don’t have that chance to regret because you don’t know it’s bad thing.

So that’s that’s another important thing about karma. And here I would like to example to help you to remember this point the, you have a one pound metal, right? And it’s a solid metal, one pound. And then on the other hand, you have one pound still, but it’s, it’s a hollow and it’s made of, again, metal. So it’s a, it’s a ball. Big ball made of metal, metal sheets. And now you throw both of them. Both of them are a pound, each one of them. And then you throw both of them in a lake, one goes down the other floats. The one with the knowledge is like one that can float, says, because even though it has a heavier karma at the end is the one that can float because it has many knowledge to and chance to like, chance to regret, as I said earlier, because it has many other knowledge. But in individual cases, it says that one with the one who knows and does bad thing have the heavier karma. But when you have a bigger picture that’s the one who floats. So it’s so important to have knowledge, learn more, get more downward teachings.

Mm. And it also depends on who you’re dealing with. You know, how important is that person to you? Even though it’s the same action. If the person is very important to you you know, someone who has a great kindness and someone who care for you, it’s whatever you do, good or bad it just multiplies becomes much greater. So we call it object of object of compassion. Someone who has a lot of compassion, right? I care and object of quality is like you know, someone who has a great wisdom, the Buddhists Bodhi, and those are object of qualities. So whatever good or bad karma we create with them has it multiplies a lot. So, and normal people is normal, right? We have both good and bad karma, whatever we do. But it’s one is one, and two is two. But in this, the earlier two cases, it multiplies. And then oh, no, no, the earlier one, I, the first one I talked about is object of kindness. And the second one, object of quality. And then the last one I’m gonna talk about is object of compassion.

That is for the objects or people or beings who have great need and who are going through, who are protect us, who are going through sufferings. So those are object for compassion. So if you, whatever you do, also multiplies. So there’s three particular objects, compassion, kindness, and quality that makes your karma much greater. While you have karma with all your actions with others. But interestingly, you don’t have to have another person or another sentence beings to create a karma because you can create on your own, let’s say you’re really angry at, you are walking through the forest and you’re stuck. You know, your backpack is grabbed by a, a tree branch, and now you’re angry or you’re tipped because of the tree root, and you’re angry and, and, and then that kind of anger and can really also create karma. So it doesn’t have to be a living being on the other side. Oh, yeah, earlier I was talking about if the question is, if we created a karma that saw the seed of that life right in the past. So it’s already decided, okay, that consciousness already decided for me to be a, as a dog in the future, what can I do? It’s already decided, right?

Or that, that already, that the, the formation, the second of the 12th link that put me under, let’s say a human being now is already decided. What can we do about karma, right? Something like that. It put you in that category. You are already there. You that one, you already, you are born, which means you already got the result of that karma that you cannot do. But there are a lot of things you can do. The projecting karma. So that project now, there, there’s a

A,

There’s a projecting karma and completing karma. So it projected you in that category. But then how you complete your life after your birth, before you die, that is your completing karma. It could project you as a poor or sick people or anything, or rich people meaning born as a, a child of a rich family, right? But how you complete is on your own. So there are a lot of things. You still have you have chances to make changes. That’s after you found, after you are in that category. That’s a that’s one thing. But I created some karma now then, because the result is not ripened yet. Like a birth example I gave you is the ripened karma. It’s already completed into, you know, and you are born there. But when we create karma now is not completed. It’s not ripened. So before it’s ripened, there’s so many, so many chances that it’s it’s weakened, it’s reduced, it’s power. So on. Main thing is when we, you know, if it’s a good karma, we can feel good about that, rejoice it, and encourage ourself to do more like that. That will

Not only help us do more like that, but also increase that karma itself. But on the other side, if you feel if you feel regret about doing that, then it reduce if you have strong with that regret of the past, if you have strong commitment not to repeat in the future, it become, it review reduce even more. And then not only that, if you do some, if you engage in some kind of antidote or opposing actions just opposite right to your early action then that will also reduce even more

<Affirmative>.

So that’s how you intervene, the karma.