Lam-rim 31: Why Unhappiness Is the Result of Destructive Behavior

The first definition – experiencing something in a satisfying or unsatisfying way – is talking about exaggerating. What really is the issue here, though, is our naivety about how things exist. If, when we experience an object or a situation, we accept it for what it is – without naivety – we are happy because we’re satisfied with the way that it is. Whether it’s seeing a loved one or having root canal work done, we just accept it. “OK, this is what it is.” We don’t exaggerate how terrible or how wonderful something is. We don’t deny the negative or positive points of something – for instance, the negative points of the loved one or the positive points of the root canal work (namely, that we’ll be rid of future tooth aches). 

If we exaggerate the negative qualities of the root canal work and make it into some sort of monstrous thing, then we’re unhappy about it: we want to be parted from it. And the more that we exaggerate, making it into something more and more horrible, the unhappier we become, the more suffering we experience. It’s the same thing when seeing a friend or a loved one: If we exaggerate the good qualities of the friend or loved one, then we start to feel attachment; we want more. We don’t want the person to leave us, we want them to stay with us forever, etc. Our whole experience of the person becomes very upsetting, very disturbing. We’re not really happy. 

So that’s talking about exaggerating the qualities of the object. 

Now, we can also exaggerate the feeling. This is what is involved with the distinction that’s made between upsetting feelings (zang-zing) and non-upsetting feelings (zang-zing med-pa). Note that, here, I am using these terms not with their strict definitions, but in a more colloquial, non-technical manner. 

An upsetting feeling also has to do with being naive about what something is. We don’t accept the feeling for what it is. For example, when a loved one dies, it’s just natural that we feel sad, but that sadness doesn’t have to be upsetting. Or having root canal work – it’s not that we focus on the pain of the root canal work with happiness; it’s the thought of not getting a future toothache that we experience with happiness, actually. So, it’s a matter of what we pay attention to. We don’t necessarily enjoy the pain of the root canal work, but we can feel neutral about it. “As long as it lasts, it lasts.” We don’t make a big deal out of it: “I wish to be parted from this experience!” 

Participant: We can experience it without exaggerating.

Dr. Berzin: Right. Of course, we would prefer for it to be finished, but we don’t make it into this monstrous thing where we’re sitting there just praying that it be over with already. It’s the same thing with enjoying being with the friend. We don’t exaggerate the happiness: “Oh, how happy I am! I don’t want to be separated from that happiness. If I am separated from it, I won’t survive!” 

Everything here has to do with the variable of exaggeration, which itself has to do with naivety. When we’re naive about something, we don’t accept the reality of it. Either (1) we don’t know the reality of it – for instance, not knowing that the pain of the root canal work or the happiness of being with our friend will pass (so, being naïve about impermanence) – or (2) we exaggerate; we have incorrect consideration – for example, exaggerating the positive or negative qualities of something. That naivety is really what causes the unhappiness.

Experiencing Sadness in a Non-Upsetting Way, Accepting Things for What They Are

So, we could experience sadness when a loved one dies – to use a drastic example. We’re not happy that the person died, but we could experience that sadness in a non-upsetting way. “He died. Everybody dies. It’s sad.” We certainly would prefer that they hadn’t died.

Participant: But it’s important to really experience this grief and this sadness, no?

Dr. Berzin: Well, it’s important to experience the grief and sadness but not to exaggerate it. We don’t want to focus on how terrible it, exaggerating the sadness. We can acknowledge that it’s not pleasant. It would be nicer if we didn’t have to experience it. So, in that sense we’re unhappy. 

You see, being unhappy isn’t necessarily negative. When losing a loved one, we of course experience sadness. I think it’s healthy. We shouldn’t repress it. Repressing it or not feeling anything is not healthy at all. But don’t get stuck in it. It will pass. We think of the reality of it. It’s the same thing in terms of thinking of the object. We don’t exaggerate its positive points or its negative points because that also will cause us to experience it with unhappiness. 

Let’s think for some minutes about the connection between exaggerating or denying – exaggerating or denying the good or bad points of an object, a situation, a person, or a feeling – and happiness/unhappiness, upsetting/non-upsetting. 

Mind you, we could not exaggerate the qualities of the object yet still exaggerate the feeling that we have about the object. So, it can get quite complex here. “I’ve lost my friend.” Well, we might understand impermanence and appreciate that they had good points and bad points, etc., but then we get stuck in exaggerating the sadness. So, there’s that possibility as well. It’s complex.

[meditation]

As I said, this gets more complex the more that we analyze it. Let’s go back to the example of losing our friend, whether it’s because the relationship breaks up or the person dies. On the one hand, we could say that what it means to experience it in a satisfying way is just to accept it. We accept that that person is no longer in our lives. If we think, “Oh, I wish they could come back! I wish that didn’t happen,” etc., then of course we’re unhappy. But if we could accept the reality of it, though we’d say we were sad, we wouldn’t be unhappy. The dictionary doesn’t make a difference, but I think we can make a difference between sad and unhappy. We feel sad. It’s not a wonderful thing, but we accept the reality of it. So, are we happy about it? I don’t know. Maybe it’s that our experiencing of it is a more neutral type of thing. 

Participant: What was the second level of how you relate?

Dr. Berzin: That gets into how we relate to the feeling – whether when it has ended, we wish to meet with it once more. 

I haven’t come to a clear understanding here, but what I was thinking was that, according to the first definition, it’s not just that we feel satisfied in the sense of accepting the reality of what’s happened; we also feel that it is of benefit. If something is satisfying, we think that it’s beneficial to us, regardless of whether it is in fact beneficial. Remember, that was the definition Vasubandhu gave in Abhidharmakosha. So, what does that mean? Well, rather than focus on the disadvantage – I no longer have my friend – we focus on the benefit. The benefit is that now I have more time for my other friends. Perhaps I was too focused on this other person. Now I have a chance to grow, etc. So, in that sense, if we can focus on the positive qualities – again, without exaggerating them – we can feel happy about what’s happened. 

So you see, there are many levels, many dimensions or angles that are involved in what we feel about an object, a situation, or a state of mind that we’re experiencing.

Participant: What would it mean not to exaggerate the feeling of unhappiness?

Dr. Berzin: What it would mean would be just to accept it for what it is. 

Now, there are two levels of naivety here, if we’re taking naivety as a synonym for unawareness (ma-rigs-pa, ignorance). I haven’t really differentiated these two levels very clearly. Naivety accompanies both constructive and destructive behaviors – although, strictly speaking, the technical term that I translate as “naivety” (gti-mug, Skt. moha) refers only to the unawareness that accompanies destructive behavior. So, even constructive behavior involves naivety in that one regards the object or the feeling as having solid, self-established existence – so, not dependent on anything else. 

Now, the naivety that makes something into a thing, into a solid object, doesn’t necessarily have to be accompanied by exaggerating the good or bad qualities of it. But when we do exaggerate the good or bad qualities, we develop longing desire or anger. So, when we don’t exaggerate the qualities – good or bad – even though we still regard the object as something solid, we can be happy about it. So that’s another level. 

One can analyze more and more deeply what’s going on with feelings. It’s not so easy. But I’m just sort of introducing some thoughts to consider because what I’m leading up to is the connection between happy and unhappy feelings and constructive and destructive behavior. That’s what I’m constantly trying to bring this toward.

Participant: When we lose a friend, we could say, “Well, I accept the reality of it. I understand impermanence and so on,” but that acceptance might be on an intellectual level only; we might not really be dealing with the feeling.  

Dr. Berzin: That’s why I’m saying that we can accept the situation without exaggerating it and still feel sad. Feeling sad, then, is not so upsetting.

Participant: But, still, you are thinking about it. There’s still a feeling of unhappiness. 

Dr. Berzin: That’s what I said. There’s still a feeling of unhappiness because you’re still feeling sad, but that feeling doesn’t necessarily have to be upsetting. When you say “intellectual,” you’re dividing things intellectually and emotionally. Whereas, here, what I’m trying to do is to differentiate between our understanding of something and what we feel about it and to show the relationship between what we understand and what we feel. Is it intellectual? The thing is that I don’t think that these two aspects are necessarily unrelated.

Participant: I think they surely are related.

Dr. Berzin: So, both our understanding and experiencing of something as happy or unhappy are related. What do you think? Think about that. That’s not an easy topic.

Participant: Actually, I would agree that, even with the death of a friend, if one really thinks about the positive aspects and deepens one’s understanding, one can see that, after a while, there can also be a feeling of happiness accompanying the sadness. For example, one could think about the good things that happened in the past or whatever. So, I think it’s not just an intellectual thing.

Dr. Berzin: Exactly. Very, very good. He’s saying that, even when a friend dies, if we calm down, think about impermanence, and so on, we can overcome the shock, for example. You didn’t say “shock,” but we could overcome the shock of the friend dying, and, eventually, we could see that perhaps there are some good points about it and feel happy about it. 

I think of the example of my good friend Alan Turner who died last year. Of course, I was sad. But what was I sad about? When I analyzed it, I was sad about the fact that I no longer had my good friend to turn to and depend on when I needed a friend. So, I was thinking about me; I wasn’t thinking about him. So, when I analyze a little bit further, I see, “Well, my friend Alan had a tremendously strong Dharma practice.” So, I can think in terms of what type of rebirth he might have, the spiritual connections he might make, and so on – particularly with Serkong Rinpoche. Alan was so strongly drawn to the old Serkong Rinpoche. If he were reborn now in a precious human rebirth, he would be 25 years younger than the young Serkong Rinpoche, which would mean that when he grew up, he would be old enough to study with this young Serkong Rinpoche. Had he lived and gone on to live a very long life, he would have been too old by the time the young Serkong Rinpoche became a fully mature master. He would likely not even be around by that time. But if he were reborn now, he would be the perfect age to study with the young Serkong Rinpoche. So, I can rejoice because he’s actually in a good situation – this is great.

So, everything depends on how we think about it. Sure, I miss him, but that’s thinking about me. Thinking about what’s of benefit to him, then it's good. And even if we’re thinking about the loss of a friend who was very negative and destructive, we still can think, “Well, at least they don’t have the chance to build up even more negative karma.” This gets into the realm of lojong, of attitude training, turning negative circumstances into positive ones by changing our attitudes, changing how we look at something and what we focus on.

So, what happiness and unhappiness, upsetting and non-upsetting are is not so simple to understand. When we experience something in a satisfying way, do we think it’s of benefit? Do we think of the beneficial qualities? Do we accept the reality of it? Do we exaggerate the good qualities or the negative qualities? There are all these variables involved – whether it’s with respect to the object that we’re experiencing or to the feeling with which we’re experiencing it. 

Exaggerating Acts as a Circumstance for the Potentials to Experience Unhappiness to Ripen 

But let’s simplify the discussion. When we meet with a feeling that we really want to be parted from – so, exaggerating the negative quality of the feeling – we are unhappy. When we meet with an object that we really don’t like – so, exaggerating the negative qualities of that object – we feel very unhappy; we are repulsed by it. With happiness, we don’t feel like that. We don’t exaggerate the positive or negative qualities of something. It’s satisfying; it’s OK. What is the connection here between unhappiness and destructive behavior? 

Destructive behavior is based on a disturbing emotion. For example, lust: “I’ve got to have it!” We exaggerate the good qualities of something that we don’t have and want. With attachment we exaggerate the good qualities: “I have it, and I don’t want to lose it!” With greed, we, again, we exaggerate the good qualities: “I want more of it. What I have is not enough!” With anger and repulsion, we exaggerate the negative qualities: “How horrible! I’ve got to get rid of it. I’ve got to destroy it, yell at it, beat it, or say nasty words to it.” So when a karmic impulse to do something is brought on by these disturbing emotions, we engage in destructive behavior. Also, what is built up is not just the potential to repeat the action but a stronger and stronger habit to exaggerate the positive or the negative qualities of something.

We have potentials to feel happy and unhappy, but these potentials have to be activated. So what activates them? It’s not the object. Sometimes we can feel happy eating this food, and sometimes we can feel unhappy eating this food. Sometimes we can feel happy seeing our friend, sometimes unhappy. So, how we feel is not determined by the object. But when we exaggerate what we are experiencing, whether it’s the qualities of the object or the feeling itself, we’re unhappy. 

So, there’s the connection between (1) destructive behavior, in other words, acting under the influence of the disturbing emotions, which are based on an exaggeration; and (2) unhappiness, which we experience when we exaggerate the qualities of the object or the feeling. According to my own analysis, although I’ve never heard this explained elsewhere, that connection makes sense. It explains why, if we are experiencing unhappiness, that unhappiness is the result of destructive behavior: it’s because there’s a continuing habit of exaggerating, of not accepting the situation for what it is. 

Think about this before you either accept or reject it. I would appreciate the discussion. This is just my own analysis. It could be wrong. But if we’re going have certainty about this law of karma – which would then motivate us to actually stop, or at least try to stop, acting destructively – we need to be convinced of the connection between unhappiness and destructive behavior.

Participant: Can you give an example?

Dr. Berzin: I am, for example, yelling at somebody, saying very nasty, cruel words. I have exaggerated the nastiness of what somebody else did or said and made it into something terrible. Therefore, I feel angry. Feeling angry, I yell and say cruel things to the person. Here, we’re talking about committing an action frequently and building up a strong habit. I have this strong habit not only of yelling but also of exaggerating the negative aspects of anything that I don’t like. So, later on… and here, we’re not talking about repeating the action of yelling: we’re talking about feeling unhappy. How we feel and what we do ripen from two different karmic potentials. So, later on, I’m eating a meal in a restaurant, exaggerating the fact that the food isn’t hot enough. I could instead just accept that it’s not hot or even ask to have it heated up. If I don’t care, I just eat it the way that it is. I’m satisfied. I’m not upset. But if I exaggerate the negative qualities, I feel unhappy. 

So, when we exaggerate the negative qualities of things (it could be positive qualities, but here, we’re talking about the negative ones), destructive behavior follows. So, exaggerating is connected with destructive behavior. What do destructive behavior and unhappiness have in common? What they have in common is what links them, which is exaggerating the negative or positive qualities of something. What do constructive behavior and happiness have in common? Not exaggerating.

Participant: There are some things that don’t seem to fit. For example, you could be very attached to someone and exaggerate their positive qualities and, with that disturbing emotion, prepare them a nice meal. That’s a positive action that can result in happiness, no?

Dr. Berzin: Well, again, it gets complex. First of all, what ripens from a karmic potential or tendency is not the feeling that we have at the moment.

Participant: You’re making the food, exaggerating the good feelings, thinking how much your friend is going to like it. Then your friend comes, and he doesn’t like it. So, exaggeration becomes a problem.

Dr. Berzin: Well, what are we happy about? While we’re cooking the food, we have an expectation and hope that the person’s going to like it. So, we’re not feeling calm at all. We’re uneasy; so, we’d say “unhappy.” Then the person comes. We’re happy to see them, but we have the expectation (so, is that really being happy?) that they’re going to like the food we prepare. If they do like it, we could be happy about it. But would it be just because we accepted the fact that they liked it, or would it be because we think, “Oh, now they love me. Now they’re going to be affectionate to me,” and so on? Is that happiness that we feel going to be upsetting or not?

Participant: I thought what he meant was that, though he was preparing the meal with exaggeration in the mind, preparing the meal was in itself a constructive deed. So what kind of result would follow? Shouldn’t he experience happiness because he was doing something constructive?

Dr. Berzin: Is it constructive to prepare a meal for someone? That’s our first point. Actually, preparing a meal is unspecified. It could go either way.

Participant: There is a nun who gave a teaching on generosity. She said that there’s a seed of positive karma in every act of giving, no matter what you give.

Dr. Berzin: What about if you give heroin to a junkie or a gun to a murderer?

Participant: Perhaps one percent is positive, and ninety-nine percent is negative. What I’m saying, though, is that there seems to be a positive seed in each action of generosity, of not harming, and all this.

Dr. Berzin: Well, your generosity could harm the person. Giving heroin to the junkie – that’s harming the person.

Participant: But I’m not saying the overall calculation is positive. 

Dr. Berzin: So, you’re saying that there can be a positive aspect. I suppose it really depends on how we define these far-reaching attitudes of generosity and so on. 

Participant: Giving is just letting go. So, even if I give heroin to somebody as a gift, I am cultivating the habit of letting go. 

Dr. Berzin: Everything, of course, depends on the motivation. I could give them the junk so they’ll overdose and kill themselves. I could give them the junk with naivety, thinking that this is going to make them happy. I could give them the heroin so that they’ll like me.

Participant: But you can’t deny the fact of letting go.

Dr. Berzin: I’m agreeing with you. So let me finish. 

The motivation has a certain result, the nature of the act itself has a certain result, and the effect of the act on the other person has a certain result. These things are differentiated. So, we could say that the act itself is a… Well, now we have to analyze further. There are certain acts that are constructive by nature, certain acts that are destructive by nature, and certain acts that are unspecified, meaning that they can go either way. One would have to really differentiate here. 

Generosity Is the Attitude of Being Willing to Give, Not the Act of Giving Itself

Let’s get back to Shantideva. Shantideva said generosity is not the act of giving. Generosity is the attitude of being willing to give, of being willing to let go and to give something to somebody. So, the attitude of generosity here, in the case of giving heroin to the junkie, is certainly mixed with naivety, but the attitude itself is positive. Now, is the actual act of giving in itself a positive act? This I don’t know. Giving something to somebody, I think, would have to be unspecified. So, what is positive here, and what plants a positive seed, is the attitude of generosity.

Participant: I think it’s the attitude to give without attachment, without expecting to get something back.

Dr. Berzin: But you could give the heroin with the expectation that the person’s going to like you in return.

Participant: Then I would doubt that it would be so positive.

Dr. Berzin: Right. But is there a seed or an aspect of generosity there? Generosity is the willingness to give. The willingness to give was all that Shantideva spoke of in his definition. He didn’t define it in terms of not wanting to get something back.

Participant: Yes. But I would assume that that meaning is included in the definition.

Dr. Berzin: Well, when you have the perfection or far-reaching attitude of generosity, more factors get added. 

There’s a difference between a simple or basic level of generosity and that of far-reaching generosity, the paramita of generosity. Those are different. Far-reaching generosity is generosity combined with bodhichitta and with the other far-reaching attitudes. 

On the simple level, generosity, as with any samsaric, constructive behavior, is still mixed with the naivety of grasping for true existence. So, I think you’re right: we have to differentiate the different mental factors that are involved. The mental factor of generosity is positive, definitely, so having that attitude would have some positive result. Now, at the same time, we would have naivety. We would likely have all sorts of other mental factors accompanying generosity, including destructive mental factors. What the destructive ones do is weaken the positive results of the attitude of generosity. The results of giving would therefore not be very strong. We could still feel happy right after giving something to someone. But here, we’re not talking about feeling happy immediately after giving; that comes from something way, way in the past. Feeling happy about it or regretting it – and therefore feeling unhappy – is the result of a different potential. 

How Closely Related Are the Different Aspects of a Karmic Result?

Participant: How does the connection come about between doing something and experiencing happiness or unhappiness while doing it? It’s not that when you’re giving something to someone you’re necessarily going to experience happiness in that situation. That happiness has nothing to do with the fact that you’re giving something.

Dr. Berzin: He brings up a very good point: How closely related are the different aspects of a karmic result? In other words, when we are acting in a constructive way and not exaggerating the positive qualities – although we have naivety about how things exist – or we are acting in a destructive way and exaggerating the negative qualities, will the potential to experience happiness or unhappiness necessarily ripen at the same time as, or together with, the potential to repeat a similar type of action What he was saying was that they seem to be unrelated. And, yes, they are unrelated – unrelated in terms of when they ripen. So, though the act provides a circumstance for the happiness to arise, it is not what causes it to arise. In that sense, the timing of the ripening of the happiness is unrelated to the commission of the act.

Participant: But it’s taught that the act and the happiness or unhappiness you experience at the time are kind of related. So, when I save a life, my life will be saved.

Dr. Berzin: Right. But that’s talking about a different karmic potential. My life being saved is the ripening of one type of potential that is built up from having saved a life, and experiencing happiness is the result of another type of potential that is built up from having saved a life. You have to differentiate. This is what I was saying: You differentiate the motivation; you differentiate the act itself; you differentiate the disturbing emotion or lack of disturbing emotion that’s with it. You also have to differentiate the disturbing emotion that accompanies the causal motivating drive, which gets you to think about doing the action, and the one that accompanies the contemporaneous motivating drive, which gets you to actually do the action, not just think about doing it. All these things have different results. They build up different potentials and tendencies. So, it’s not that you have one act and that that one act and all the mental factors that accompany it together build up one seed that ripens as one package. Not at all. They’re all different parts. We’re talking simply about happiness and unhappiness. 

Participant: So, we’re talking about the disturbing emotions.

Dr. Berzin: We’re talking about the happiness or unhappiness that is connected with the disturbing emotions. 

We’re not talking about what we actually do when we feel like doing an action again. That’s a different mechanism. When we talk about the law of certainty of karma, we’re talking only about the happiness and unhappiness that are the results of constructive and destructive behavior. We’re not talking about it being certain that if you killed somebody, you will be killed, or that if you’re killed, it’s the result of having killed somebody. That’s not what’s involved in the law of certainty. So, we need to differentiate. 

A Single Karmic Action Will Build Up Different Kinds of Potentials and Give Rise to Different Results

Any karmic action is going to give rise to many different results. So, there are many different aspects of a result in terms of the potentials that are built up. There are potentials for repeating actions we’ve done in the past. There are potentials for experiencing things happening to us that are similar to what we’ve done in the past. There are potentials for the types of rebirths we have. There are potentials for experiencing certain kinds of situations or environments, which affect how we experience our rebirths. And there are potentials for experiencing happiness and unhappiness. And none of these are fixed: the result does not already exist in the cause. So, depending on various circumstances and on what we do, these potentials will ripen into different things. And when they ripen will depend on yet other circumstances and so on. 

All of this is incredibly complex. When we start to deconstruct it all, we then start to understand the voidness of cause and effect – that nevertheless it works. 

What we’re trying to understand here is simply the connection between happiness and constructive behavior and unhappiness and destructive behavior. If we really understood and were really convinced of the connection between happiness and constructive behavior and unhappiness and destructive behavior, we would – according to the axiom that everybody wants to be happy and nobody wants to be unhappy – refrain from destructive behavior. That’s the whole point of our discussion. And it is a very, very difficult point. It’s usually not discussed, which is why I’m discussing it. How do we become convinced that we need to stop acting destructively? At this level, though, we’re basically just using self-control not to act on the basis of the disturbing emotions when they come up. That’s the first step: Don’t do it! It’s just using self-control. Then as we progress through the stages, we can deconstruct the disturbing emotions and so on that cause us to act in destructive ways and work to eliminate them. 

We need to overcome laziness. Laziness, I think, is one of the big obstacles on this initial scope. We don’t take advantage of the precious human rebirth because we don’t appreciate it and because we’re lazy. And we’re naive: we think that it’ll last forever. Therefore, we don’t stop acting destructively. And we’re naive about our actions: we don’t understand the consequences.

Providing Circumstances for the Potentials for Happiness to Ripen

Participant: When I think of being happy, I always think of accepting and relaxing. I can relax because I have a good understanding of what’s going on in the moment. So, I don’t feel threatened. As soon as I have a misunderstanding about the situation, I get tense. This is when unhappiness sets in.

Dr. Berzin: This is a point I haven’t brought up, namely, what are the circumstances for the potentials for happiness to ripen? 

Circumstances for the potentials for happiness to ripen are not exaggerating the negative or positive qualities of a situation – so, equanimity – and having a quiet mind, what’s called “serenity,” or “tranquility.” You quiet the mind of worries, expectations, extraneous thoughts, dullness, and so on. Basically, you relax – which is what you said. You quiet down. That’s also a circumstance for the potentials for happiness to ripen. What can happen – though this gets into more of a mahamudra style of explanation – is that when you quiet the mind of all the distractions, worries, expectations, dullness, disturbing emotions, and so on, you access the basic level of happiness that is part of the innate nature of the mind.

Participant: Isn’t that beyond the regular, samsaric happiness?

Dr. Berzin: Right. Having a quiet mind is just a foundation. That also acts as a circumstance for the potentials for samsaric happiness to ripen as well. But not exaggerating and having a quiet mind are two aspects that we need, actually, for the potentials for happiness to ripen. They go together. Where does the exaggeration come from? It comes from worries, expectations, and all of that. So, really, it’s a matter of quieting down and relaxing. Definitely.

Participant: That makes a lot of sense experientially.

Dr. Berzin: Right. 

Also, if we’re more relaxed, we can experience more happiness. We also can change our attitudes. Are we thinking just of me, me, me, or are we thinking of everybody who has this certain problem? So, we can overcome other levels of naivety. There are many, many other factors that can help the potentials for happiness that we’ve built up from constructive behavior to ripen. It’s not just the basic level of happiness of the nature of the mind that acts as a circumstance. We’re talking about karma here. The basic nature of the mind doesn’t have to do with karma. It has to do with an even more fundamental level. But here we’re talking about regular, samsaric happiness as a result of constructive behavior.

Participant: So, the experiencing of this nature – the happiness of the mind or whatever –would be karmically neutral?

Dr. Berzin: It would be nonupsetting – so, not mixed with confusion. For most of us, it’s mixed with confusion. If it’s mixed with confusion, we’re not going to experience the happiness that is part of the actual nature of the mind. It’s very rare that we get in contact with the actual nature of the mind. We might get in contact with a more superficial level of it, though.

Participant: In the beginning, then, the happiness is mixed with confusion.

Dr. Berzin: Yes, definitely.

Participant: Is this what one achieves with shamatha as well?

Dr. Berzin: What one achieves in shamatha is another type of happiness. It is, however, related. Here, we’re not talking about the advanced level of quieting the mind of dullness and agitation. We’re just talking about the regular level of calming down. We’re talking about a very samsaric level here.