In our discussion of Letter to a Friend by Nagarjuna we have – to review again – spoken about how Nagarjuna first discusses the basic framework for approaching the teachings and then the main part of the teachings, which, according to the outline we are following, is a presentation of the six far-reaching attitudes. In his presentation of the far-reaching discriminating awareness, he discusses the three higher trainings: higher discipline, higher concentration, and higher discriminating awareness. The discussion of higher discriminating awareness is presented on two levels: how to extract ourselves from the disturbing emotions – in other words, how to gain liberation – and how to set out toward enlightenment, which is where we are now.
To set out for enlightenment, we need to develop the two actual arya pathway minds. Those are the seeing pathway mind and the accustoming pathway mind with which we get and then accustom ourselves to the non-conceptual cognition of the four noble truths and the lack of an impossible soul, or self, that is actually understanding or cognizing these four noble truths and the voidness of all of them. If we do that from the Mahayana point of view, we would also include the voidness of all of them.
If we think in terms of the four noble truths – true suffering, true cause of suffering, true stopping of the suffering and its causes, and the true pathway mind that will lead to that stopping – we see that those topics are covered by the twelve links of dependent arising.
The twelve links speak about the suffering of samsara, the main cause of it, which is our unawareness, and the whole mechanism by which we generate and perpetuate our samsaric basis – so, uncontrollably recurring rebirth – which is the basis for the other two types of suffering, the suffering of unhappiness and gross suffering and the suffering of change, which refers to our ordinary happiness that never satisfies and always changes.
If we want to stop this whole process of rebirth, we have to stop unawareness, which we can do by following these twelve links in what is known as the reverse order – so, to stop old age and dying, we have to stop conception; to stop conception, we have to go backwards, backwards, backwards until we reach the first link, unawareness. We have to stop that unawareness in order to be able to gain a true stopping of that cause of suffering (third noble truth) with the true pathway of mind, which is the correct understanding that would enable us to eliminate forever the unawareness about how we and other persons, other living beings, exist.
The topic of the twelve links is covered by a few verses. We are still in our discussion of those, which has taken many weeks, but there are many topics within this that need further explanation. These are Verses 109 to 111:
[109] From unawareness, karmic impulses come forth; from them, consciousness; from that, name and form; from them, the cognitive stimulators are caused; and from them, contacting awareness, the Able Sage has declared.
[110] From contacting awareness, feelings (of a level of happiness) originate; on the basis of feelings, craving comes to arise; from craving, an obtainer emotion or attitude comes to develop; from that, an impulse for further existence; and from an impulse for further existence, rebirth.
[111] When rebirth has occurred, then an extremely great mass of sufferings will have arisen, such as sorrow, sickness, aging, deprivation of what we desire, and fear of death; but, (and here is the reversing of it) by stopping rebirth, all of these (sufferings) will have been stopped.
We have discussed the various beginning links. Unawareness, we saw, deals only with the unawareness of how persons exist because we need to have an explanation that can be accepted by both the Hinayana and Mahayana presentations. Then, from that unawareness, we have various disturbing emotions. Those cause the karmic impulses to come forth. That’s the second link, the affecting karmic impulses that both affect our behavior and affect what we will experience in the future.
Maybe we touched on this a little bit last week. I don’t really recall. But when we talk about karma, it is important to realize that we are talking about karmic impulses; we are not talking about the actions themselves. We get very confused in the detailed explanations of karma if we think of karma as actions. Karma (las) is what gets us into an action. It’s the urge, or impulse, which, from Asanga’s point of view, is always a mental factor. It’s the mental factor of an urge (sems-pa), or impulse, that draws us into a mental, verbal or physical action. From the Vaibhashika and Prasangika point of view, it is a mental factor only in the case of mental actions. For physical and verbal actions, it is a form of physical phenomenon. But it is not the actual act itself.
It is much easier to understand Asanga’s presentation of karma always being a mental urge, or impulse. It doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with being a conscious intention, although intention always accompanies the urge. A so-called unintentional action just means that we aren’t conscious of the intention, that we don’t do an action on purpose. For instance, there could be an impulse that brings us into the action of tripping and falling. That would be brought on by the impulse that gets us to take that step that results in us tripping and falling.
Karma Certain to Ripen within a Specific Lifetime
And these karmic impulses will… I mean, this is an interesting point that I clarified when I was in India this time – this whole discussion about the certainty of karma. And here, I’m talking about the certainty regarding the lifetime in which we would begin to experience the results of our karmic actions, or more specifically, the karmic impulses that bring those actions on.
Enacted and Reinforced Karmic Impulses
Now, Asanga has several presentations concerning the types of karmic impulses whose results we are either certain or uncertain to begin experiencing in a specific lifetime. These have to do with two variables. One is whether or not the karmic impulse has been reinforced (bsags-pa), and the other is whether or not the karmic impulse has been enacted (byas-pa). One has to understand this in terms of the correct terminology because I had always understood it incorrectly. In any case…
A reinforced karmic impulse is one for any physical or verbal action whose karmic potential has been strengthened by deliberating the action for a long time beforehand and deciding to do it. So, for instance, I think over how I am going to rob a store or how I am going to go and help somebody – so, it can be a destructive or constructive action – and then I make a decision to do it. Those are examples of actions brought on by a karmic impulse that has been reinforced.
Then the impulse for the physical or verbal action can be enacted: we actually do or say what we had deliberated doing or saying and the action reaches its finale. But we can also not do it, in which case, the karmic impulse for that physical or verbal action is not enacted, although it would still be a reinforced one since the karmic potentials built up by the deliberation would have been strengthened. However, if we don’t deliberate beforehand, then the impulse would merely be enacted and not reinforced.
So, there are four possibilities here. A karmic impulse can be both reinforced and enacted, reinforced but not enacted, enacted but not reinforced, and neither reinforced nor enacted. However, it’s only karmic impulses that have been reinforced and enacted that have certainty concerning the timeframe for experiencing their results.
Three Time Frames When the Ripened Results Can Begin to Arise
Only those actions brought on by karmic impulses that have been enacted and reinforced have certainty of the lifetime in which we would experience their results. This isn’t talking about the fact that it is certain that if we are experiencing unhappiness, it is the ripening of destructive behavior, and that if we are experiencing happiness, it is the ripening of constructive behavior. That is a different discussion of certainty, though experiencing happiness and so on would, of course, be part of the karmic results that we experience. Here, we’re talking about the certainty of the lifetime, and for that there are three possibilities. And for the sake of simplicity, we’ll speak in terms of actions rather than the karmic impulses that bring them on.
[1] There are certain actions, the results of which we are certain to begin to experience in this lifetime. These are actions that are either very strongly positive or strongly negative. There are various lists exemplifying these types of actions – like those committed toward our parents, toward our spiritual teachers, and so on. In any case, these types of actions are very strongly positive or negative ones. Now, “ripened results” here doesn’t refer to a ripening in terms of producing the body and mind of another rebirth. The types of results we would experience are certain levels of happiness or unhappiness, results that correspond to their cause in our actions and behavior as well as comprehensive results.
[2] There are certain actions whose results we are certain to begin to experience in the immediately following rebirth. These refer to what are called the five “heinous crimes,” or the heaviest destructive actions. These are killing your mother, killing your father, killing an arhat (that’s a liberated being), causing a schism in the sangha, which has to do with harboring really strong negative attitudes toward the Buddha and the Buddhist teachings – like saying, “The Buddhist teachings are no good, and I have the true Buddhist teachings. I have the true teachings to enlightenment, so forget about the Buddha and come follow me.” – or engaging in physical actions that are harmful to the Buddhist monastic institution. So, it’s not just talking about two Dharma centers separating from each other. It is much more serious than that. The fifth one is drawing blood from a Buddha with negative intention.
Participant: It’s talking about these Dharma centers
Dr. Berzin: It is not talking about a Dharma center.
Participant: So, a split is…
Dr. Berzin: If somebody wants to be heavy, they could, for instance, say, “If you are disloyal to my Dharma centre and start your own Dharma centre, then you are disloyal to me.” But a schism is not talking about that. It’s talking about “Hey, what Buddha taught isn’t the path to enlightenment, and…” It’s causing a schism in the monastic community; it’s not talking about a Dharma center. It’s saying, like Devadatta did, that the discipline that the Buddha gave for the monks is insufficient, that it’s not good. Devadatta started his own order in which the discipline was far, far stricter, actually – so, a real ascetic type of trip, which, as it turns out, the forest traditions and the mahasiddhas adopted to a large extent. But in any case, it has to do with having bad will toward the Buddha and the Buddha’s teachings. This is a schism in the Dharma. There is a lot of discussion about what it actually is.
The fifth one, as I say, is drawing blood from a Buddha with bad intentions (so, it is not a doctor doing a blood test on the Buddha or something like that). That is certain to ripen in the next lifetime in a rebirth in one of the worst of the hells.
[3] There are other actions whose results we are certain to begin to experience in some lifetime after that.
In these last two cases, when we’re talk about ripening, we’re talking about producing a body and mind, the aggregates of a rebirth state. That is called the “ripened result.” And those types of results we would only just begin to experience in that lifetime. That’s because the reinforced and enacted karmic impulses that bring such actions on could generate a certain type of rebirth for five hundred lifetimes. So, it doesn’t have to be just one rebirth.
Then there are karmic impulses for actions that would not have certainty as to the lifetime in which we would experience their results. But let’s take care of the first case, which is that we build up something…
By the way, this division of the certainty of lifetime, only has to do with karmic impulses for physical or verbal actions, not mental actions. Mental actions are a different discussion. For instance, if you plan to do a certain action but you don’t do it, you haven’t committed a physical or verbal action, so you can’t possibly experience the results of having committed a physical or verbal action. You only have committed a mental action. However, that, too, can have its karmic consequences.
But let’s get back to karmic impulses for physical or verbal actions that are enacted. Let’s say that we plan to do something and… No, let’s do it the other way around. We don’t plan to do something. We haven’t planned to do something, but we do it – like stepping on an ant by accident. Well, there will be a karmic result because we have done something: we’ve actually killed something. But because the action wasn’t deliberated, it’s not definite when we’ll experience its result. So, there is no certainty when it will ripen. But eventually, it will ripen into something.
Karma Uncertain to Ripen within a Specific Lifetime
So, even if we have done something in a dream… Well, actions committed in dreams are, technically, actions of the mind. But even if we considered it to be an action of the body, the action doesn’t reach its finale since nobody actually dies. However, we can clearly experience anger and so on when killing in a dream, so the action could be one of destructive thinking, which could ripen into some form of suffering. Obviously, we wouldn’t experience the same karmic results as physically killing a real person.
Participant: What about a video game?
Dr. Berzin: Obviously, they don’t discuss video games in the ancient texts, but I think it could be similar. It involves a tremendous amount of aggressive thinking and action. These kids who play video games – they really press the buttons and so on in a very aggressive way.
Participant: When it gets like in Star Trek, like holodeck quality…
Dr. Berzin: When it gets holodeck quality? Sure, like in Star Trek. Then, of course, it would be even clearer that you are doing a physical act. Then it could be…
Yeah, you have a question?
Participant: What about Tsongkhapa saying in Lam-rim chen-mo that if you do something in your dream, it’s a…
Participant: You did it, but you don’t collect the karma.
Dr. Berzin: I would have to look at that again, what it says in Lam-rim chen-mo about killing in a dream. Well, there is a difference between (this was explained) committing an action physically and committing it mentally
Participant: When you bring all these different things about certainty and uncertainty together, how can I take care of the sentence that says that karma is certain?
Dr. Berzin: How do we take care of the fact that the sentence says that karma is certain? There is what I said in the beginning of this discussion – that one law of karma is that if you experience unhappiness, it is the ripening of destructive actions; if you experience happiness, it is the ripening of constructive actions. That’s certain, though that certainty doesn’t necessarily work the other way around. In other words, if you commit a destructive action, it is not certain that you will experience unhappiness and suffering because you could purify it.
However, Hinayana says that there is no way that we won’t meet with the karmic results – that they will have to be experienced, even if only in a very trivial way. It is only according to Asanga, the Mahayana point of view, that there can be uncertainty about having to experience the results at all because things can be purified. But if we don’t purify, it is certain that we will experience the results at some point.
There are the stages of purifying: admitting that it was wrong – confessing, feeling regret; promising to try your best not to repeat it; reaffirming the positive direction in life; and doing something positive to counter the negative action. But the actual, deepest way to purify fully is with the understanding of voidness. Then there would be nothing to activate any karmic aftermath.
Participant: What if, for example, I have trouble with somebody, and I imagine how to kill them or something. Would the impulse in that case be enacted?
Dr. Berzin: Well, if you just think, “Oh, I could strangle this person who pushed ahead of me in line” or something like that, that would just be a destructive mental action of thinking. If, however, you actually plan out how you’re going to strangle the person and come to a decision to do it, even if you don’t actually physically do it, the mental action is a complete destructive karmic action of thinking with malice. In that case, the karmic impulse is reinforced but not enacted. And that has its own consequences.
Purification
Now, I don’t know if Theravada says this. I imagine that they must have some sort of confession. They certainly have it for monks and nuns. In the pratimoksha, you can purify, so it must be for general people as well. It’s interesting. An actual, so-called confession for laypeople evolved a little bit later and did so mostly in Kashmir, Central Asia, having been influenced by Manichaeism and other religions. But it came out more prominently for laypeople only a little bit later. Originally, they just spoke about monks and nuns doing purification. It says that what you cannot purify – according to Vaibhashika, according to Vasubandhu – is having committed any of the five heinous crimes (killed your mother, killed your father, etc.). That can’t be purified. Everything else can be purified, which is interesting I didn’t really know that till I got that clarification this summer. So, they have that in the Vaibhashika branch of Hinayana, which is very nice, actually.
When you get to monastic vows – can it be purified or not purified, etc. – there is a difference between purifying the karma in terms of karmic consequences and getting kicked out of the monastery. If you commit one of the “downfalls,” it’s called – let’s say, killing somebody – and you conceal it, hide it, you are kicked out. If immediately you confess and so on, then though you’ve transgressed the vow and weakened the vow, you are not kicked out of the monastery. So, there are these technical differences in the Vinaya.
The point of all of this is to know, when you act out of unawareness, which karmic impulses (the second link) will actually lead to the third link of leaving karmic aftermath on your mental continuum. And it’s interesting – unawareness here. You could say, “Well, where is unawareness when you step on an ant by accident?” It’s a very interesting question. Where is it?
Factors That Affect the Strength of Karmic Results
So, now you have to get into what makes an action destructive. It is destructive if it is motivated by any of the three poison attitudes: desire, hostility, or naivety about cause and effect, like thinking, “Well, it doesn’t matter if I step on the ants. They don’t feel anything.” That is naivety. Or “I am a human being. I have more rights than the ants, so I can step on them.” This type of thing. But what really has to be there is having no moral self-dignity: “I don’t care. I don’t take any pride in myself that I am going to be ethical and so on.” So, you don’t care. And you don’t care about how your actions reflect on others – your teachers, other Buddhists, your family, and so on.
So, what is it when you step on an ant? It becomes an interesting question.
Participant: Without planning it and without…
Dr. Berzin: Without planning it. And let’s say you didn’t even know that you stepped on an ant. You drive your car and… I mean, how many insects do you kill when you drive your car? An awful lot. Hundreds.
Participant: That can happen.
Dr. Berzin: Right. So, you could say it is a bit of naivety to think that somehow all the insects know to go away and not be there or not to care.
But, also, there is an interesting category of samsara, which is that there are certain actions that just perpetuate samsara, that bring about the all-affecting suffering of just general samsara. For example, if you eat, something is going to be killed, whether it is an animal that actually is killed or the various insects that are going to die in the process of agriculture. When you cook something, you are going to kill something. Even if you don’t cook, you are likely to eat something, some tiny, little insect on the vegetable. You walk on the ground – there is no way that you can actually avoid at some point stepping on something. Unless you live in the deep Arctic or something like that.
Participant: You buy a Chinese product – there’s so much suffering from the workers who made it.
Dr. Berzin: Well, yeah. That gets into a whole other discussion – that if you buy a Chinese product or any product that is made by child labor or whatever, there was suffering involved.
But anyway, there is this thing of perpetuating samsara. So, an action becomes destructive from that point of view.
As I say, when you start to analyze very carefully, the ripening of karma gets very, very complicated because, also, there are the factors that make the ripening strong or weak. those have to do with things like how frequently you do it, whether or not you have a vow against it, the strength of the disturbing emotion that is there, whether or not the other person has been really kind to you, like your parents or something like that. There are a lot of factors that can strengthen the ripening – so, the strength of the karmic aftermath.
Karmic aftermath, which includes karmic potentials, karmic tendencies, a network of karmic force, and karmic constant habits, is imputed on the mental continuum; in other words, it’s not something that is physically planted there. But the fact that there has been a causal situation and an effect (and there could be many effects) is something that we can put together as an abstraction, as an imputation, and say that there is a potential there, that there is a tendency there, that there is a karmic force there – this type of thing. That is what these initial links are talking about.
Also, what affects the ripening has to do with the pathway of the karmic impulse – “pathway of karma” (las-lam) it’s called. We’ve talked about this before. The pathway of a karmic impulse is the action, the physical, verbal or mental action that the karmic impulse gets us into, so it’s not the karmic impulse itself. There are four factors that need to be there for the pathway of karma to be complete. There needs to be a basis against which the action is aimed – for example, a being who, in the case of killing, could die from our action or an object that, in the case of stealing, could be taken. There also need to be a motivating mental framework, which includes an unmistaken distinguishing, a motivating intention and a motivating emotion. Also, a method needs to be implemented to cause the action to occur, and the action needs to reach its finale, which, in the case of killing, is that the person or animal dies. All of these factors need to be there for the pathway of karma to be complete and for it to give its fullest result.
So, let’s say you decide to kill somebody, and you go to shoot them, but you miss. You just injure them, hit them in the arm, because they moved or you had bad aim. Even though you deliberated killing them – so, your intention was to kill – the pathway of karma is not one of killing because the person didn’t die. Instead, it’s the karma of wounding someone. So, the karmic consequences will not be as strong as if the person had actually died. However, because of the deliberation, the consequences will be stronger than if the action hadn’t been deliberated.
Do Events Triggered by a Karmic Action That We Have Committed Affect How We Experience Its Results?
Participant: Is it also important what is triggered by the killing? For instance, I shoot this person, which leads to the First World War?
Dr. Berzin: Oh. Is it important what the killing triggers, like assassinating some duke in… where was it?
Participant: Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Austria-Hungary.
Dr. Berzin: Right. That was one of the main events that triggered the First World War. Is there a consequence? Does that affect the ripening? I don’t know because there were…
Participant: Incredible…
Dr. Berzin: Yes, there were incredible man-made consequences of that. The thing that comes to my mind is the opposite example, which is that it is heavier to kill somebody who was able to help a tremendous number of people. In other words, it is heavier to assassinate Mahatma Gandhi than it is to shoot a rat or a deer or something like that because that person had been doing a lot of good and could have helped a lot more people. So, here with the negative thing – I don’t really know.
Participant: If you killed Hitler, then maybe you have prevented a lot of…
Dr. Berzin: Right. Killing Hitler could have prevented a lot of things. I think that…
Vasubandhu has a discussion about the action – that the action has three phases: the preliminary action, the actual action, and the follow-up action. This is for physical and verbal actions. Mental actions only have the phase of the actual action. The example that I saw was with sexual behavior – that there is the foreplay, having the liaison itself, and then afterwards, sort of lying there and enjoying being nice with each other or something like that. Or let’s say you plan to rob something. The preliminary action would be going to the place, and the actual action would be the act of actually robbing something, and the follow-up action would be taking it home and so on. So, they do talk about follow-up actions.
Now, the follow-up consequence… you see, this would be a man-made consequence. That’s called the “man–made result,” which is pretty much the immediate result of something – like you yell at the child, and the child cries, or you kick the wall, and you injure your foot. Injuring your foot and your foot hurting are not karmic results of kicking the wall. Those are man-made results of kicking the wall. It’s just a mechanical result in a sense.
So, in terms of the consequences of killing Hitler or killing this person that helped to trigger the First World War… I am not sure what category that would come in. It makes sense that that would have… I mean, there is the heaviness or lightness of the action. It usually has to do with the victim and what they experience – like whether or not you cause a lot of pain to the other person, a lot of suffering to the other person. Let’s say you steal something from someone, but they don’t care. If they’re happy that you took it – that’s very different than if they really suffer. So, it makes sense that there would be an effect, but I don’t know which category it would fit into. I’d have to research that. But it wouldn’t be… Would it affect the ripening?
Participant: In one sense, it could prevent a lot of catastrophes and maybe a lot of…
Dr. Berzin: It would prevent… Well, no. Now that I think about it, the example is of building a stupa. If you build a stupa, it continues to build up positive force, even after you have died and you are in a next rebirth, because every time that somebody circumambulates it… or you build a monastery. Every time people use it and benefit from it, you build up more positive karma, more positive force, I should say. So, similarly, if you do something destructive and, as a consequence, more and more people get killed – that should build up more negative force for you. I think it would come under that category.
Participant: But then, in the other way round: if you kill somebody, it prevents that further damage.
Dr. Berzin: If you kill somebody and it prevents others from being killed? Yes, because then you are, in a sense, saving life. And saving life is certainly a constructive action – especially if that was your motivation.
Participant: [Inaudible]
Dr. Berzin: Right, as in the example of Buddha killing the oarsman who was going to kill the five hundred merchants on the ship.
Participant: So, you have the negative action of killing, but you have the positive…
Dr. Berzin: You have the negative action of killing and the positive action… Well, yes. This gets into an unbelievably complicated topic, which is mixed karma – “black and white karma” it’s called. And there are different interpretations of that by Vasubandhu in the Vaibhashika system and by Asanga in the Chittamatra or Mahayana system.
And I must say I haven’t read it yet, but Serkong Rinpoche’s teacher Geshe Tenzin Zangpo gave me a book, a commentary, that has many, many pages of a detailed debate logic discussion of black and white karma – whether it is really destructive or really constructive and whether different parts, like the motivation, can ripen in one thing and the action in another thing. Obviously, that could lead to a complex analysis. But with this example of Buddha killing this oarsman, it is said that as a result of the killing, he got a thorn in his foot but that as a result of the preventing the death of so many people, he completed his first countless eon (that’s for a zillion eons) of positive force. But that is a complex topic. It really is.
Causal and Contemporaneous Motivations
Participant: For instance, if you spray insect spray on the seeds in the field to prevent… You know, you kill all the insects. You have the intention to kill them, and you are happy about it, I think. But on the other way, you do it with the intention to…
Dr. Berzin: Right. This is a very interesting question. You spray the field with insecticide in order to kill the insects so that you’ll have a crop to feed the village. OK. So, now you have to analyze what are called the “causal motivation” and the “contemporaneous motivation.” Causal motivation was compassion: “I want to be able to feed the village.” You weren’t really thinking of compassion for the insects, but maybe, you know… “I want to save the insects from this terrible karma of depriving the…” Highly unlikely that you would think like that.
Participant: You really want to eliminate them. And I think that when they are eliminated, you are in a way happy that they have died.
Dr. Berzin: Right. So, then you are happy… I am just analyzing the stages a little bit more slowly.
So, your motivation is to help the villagers. That is the causal motivation. So, what is involved? There is the impulse to think to save the villagers and the act of thinking about how you can provide them with food from your crop. That’s a positive mental action – a positive mental impulse and mental action. So, that’s one thing. That has a positive result. But then you deliberate how you are going to kill the insects that are eating your crop. So, you plan: “I am going to buy this insecticide. Then I’ll get this, and I’ll spray it like that,” and so on. So, you deliberate it and decide to do it. Then, when you actually do it (I’ve found this to be true from my own experience), you are really into “die!” You really want the things to die. It is very hard to do this without the contemporaneous motivation being hostility.
I remember I once had to fumigate my house for bed bugs. You really get into it. You know, one of them is still running around, and you aim the spraycan right at it – “die!” Like that. So, there is hostility. And you also rejoice, which makes it even heavier: “Oh, I got rid of them. I’m really happy!” That’s pretty negative.
So, what these texts that are analyzing are saying is that the initial act of “I want to save the villagers and help the villagers” is quite a separate act. That’s a whole mental act in and of itself. But what will really affect the ethical status of the killing is the contemporaneous motivation – in other words, what your emotional state is as you initiate, carry out and complete the action. So, you could differentiate like that.
It’s very interesting. When you step on a big cockroach, initially, you could have real hostility. But as you step on it, it makes such a mess that you go ”Yuck!” It’s quite a different emotional state. So, that can change during the course of an action. And all of these are going to affect the heaviness of the so-called imprint on your mind – the third link, the consciousness link.
Analyzing the Motivation – Suicide Bomber or Martyr?
Participant: In the Muslim world, they commit suicide, but for the followers, it’s positive.
Dr. Berzin: OK. What happens when we have what the West calls suicide bombing and what the Islamic world calls being a martyr? Very different mental label. Very different mental label.
I just saw a documentary two nights ago called The Cult of a Suicide Bomber. In it, were interviews of families of people who had done this. They were very emphatic about the fact that their children were martyrs and that there was a difference between… it’s not suicide: it’s martyrdom. Suicide is a state of desperation in which you just want to end your life because you don’t see anything, whereas these martyrs have a cause and a reason, which they think is beneficial. It is not an act of desperation because… well, you could say it is an act of desperation in that there is no other method that is going to help, but they’re going to go to paradise as a result of dying while killing the “infidels.”
So, now, what kind of action is that? You have committed an action of killing.
Participant: You’ve planned it.
Dr. Berzin: Planned it, decided to do it and did it. So, there is going to be certainty about when it ripens. What was the motivating thought? Well, initially… I mean, it’s like the case that we just said. Their initial motivation, the causal one, would be to defend Islam, to get independence for Palestine or whatever. So, they had a positive motivation to start with, unless their motivation was “I really want to kill these people.”
Participant: It’s also a motivation of killing
Dr. Berzin: Well, this is the naivety of cause and effect – thinking that by doing this, they will achieve their goal. So, one has to analyze the different parts of it. They think it is beneficial. They think that it is going to help them to achieve their goal. It’s just as naive as thinking that bombing Iraq is going to bring democracy and that everybody is going to love you for having bombed and destroyed your city and civilization.
Participant: [Inaudible]
Dr. Berzin: It’s incredibly naivety.
But in any case, when they commit the act of martyrdom, do they have hostility? Well, they certainly would have naivety. Do they have hostility? Probably they do, although their state of mind might be, “I am going to paradise.” It is hard to interview somebody unless they don’t die in one of these suicide attacks. But it’s interesting – the different label. And all the relatives were very, very emphatic: they’re called “martyrs.”
In general, it is said that suicide is less heavy than killing somebody else because, when you die from suicide, you are already taking another rebirth, so the karmic consequences will accrue on your mental continuum in another rebirth, not in the rebirth in which you did it. But perhaps more importantly, for the action of killing to be complete, the basis has to be some person, some being, other than ourselves. That makes it a weaker action.
Buddhism Does Not Talk about What Is Good or Bad But about How Much Suffering or Happiness We Generate for Ourselves and Others
It’s interesting the way that one looks at these things. If we look at them from a Western values point of view, we think, “Well, this type of action was really bad. It was worse than the other one.” So, we think in terms of the variable of “how bad” something was, whereas in Buddhism, they’re not talking about that. It’s not a value judgment. They are talking about how much suffering it will generate for ourselves. Will it be a lot or not so much? Is it definite that we’ll experience the results at this time, or could we experience them at any time – a million years from now? So, in that sense, it’s about how strong the action is, not how bad it is.
So, I think it is important when we look at this whole discussion of karma to totally remove from it, if we can – which is not so easy for us since we are so conditioned by our Western religions – this idea of good and bad. It’s just simply about how much suffering we are generating for ourselves. And that’s why… I mean I think we talked about this last week in terms of sexual behavior. In fact, all sexual behavior perpetuates samsara because desire is involved. So, it is not a matter of which sexual act is OK and which is not OK, which is good and which is bad. It’s a matter of – if you want to withdraw from samsara and gain liberation from desire – what the stages of applying discipline and self-control to your sexual behavior are and what would you stop first.
I was discussing this with both Ling Ringpoche’s tutor Geshe Wangchen and Serkong Rinpoche’s tutor Geshe Tenzin Zangpo. One of the things that Geshe Wangchen pointed out was that all this discussion about sexual behavior – because it is so complex – is really to make you think about your sexual activity, to be aware of what you are doing and why, and how much desire is behind it and whether you exercise any self-control at all. Obviously, if you exert no self–control, you are building up far more suffering for yourself than if you place certain limits on it and exercise self-control. That’s at least a start. And that’s why you have the different stages of vows. So, it’s like that.
Eating – you could eat without desire. That is conceivable. It’s very hard to indulge in sexual activity without some desire, at least at the moment when you actually are doing it.
So, this whole discussion of karma isn’t really about good and bad. It’s about… Pardon?
Participant: No child, nobody is reborn.
Dr. Berzin: No, it is not saying that nobody would be reborn. There are bodhisattva acts in which you produce a child. That is discussed in the sutras. It’s just saying that if you really want to gain liberation, this is eventually what you’re going to have to do.
The Hindus deal with it in the same way, except that they make it into stages of life. They say, first, you do your householder duty. Then, after you have produced a child and a family, you become a sannyasin and go off to wander and lead a religious, ascetic life. And when you are a student, you also are a celibate (Brahmacharya). So, they have different stages of life. It is another approach but to the same issue.
Participant: The Indian movement out there, Brahma Kumaris, I think…
Dr. Berzin: Brahma Kumaris… yeah. Well, another term for Brahmacharya is celibate. So, one has it in both systems, the Hindu and Buddhist, that, eventually, if you want to gain moksha, or liberation, you need liberation from biology, basically – from rebirth.
So, these are not easy pills to swallow. And it all comes down to, do we really want to gain liberation? And do we even have a clear idea of what liberation is, what it would mean, let alone are we capable of it?
Participant: I still do not get the point that if you plan to do an action, it is another level of certainty of the ripening than if you actually do it. So, what was the point about the certainty of these actions?
Dr. Berzin: So, the question is: what about certainty concerning planning or not planning? If you plan something, it is not certain that you will do it. You could do it; you could not do it.
Participant: It is not about the certainty of what happens?
Dr. Berzin: The certainty of what happens? It depends. From a Mahayana point of view, everything is uncertain in terms of producing a ripening because it could be purified. Otherwise, it is a matter of the certainty or uncertainty of when it would ripen. What would have of ripening within a certain timeframe are the karmic impulses for physical and verbal actions that have been both enacted and reinforced. So, mental actions… If you look at the list of what ripens in this lifetime, it’s not just thinking about committing the action, like helping your mother or father: it’s actually doing it.
So, a mental action… is there any certainty about when it would ripen? I don’t really know. I must say, all of this is terribly confusing even for the Tibetans. Even Geshe Tenzin Zangpo had to… he brought out all sorts of texts and looked it up. It is very, very complicated what all this really means.
So, if you deliberated and planned it, it is not certain that you will do it. If you deliberate it and you do it, there is certainty concerning the time frame when it would ripen, but it is not certain that it has to ripen because you could purify it. If you do it but haven’t planned it, there is no certainty about the time, although it will ripen at some time. But again, there is no certainty that it will ripen at all because you could purify it.
Participant: One last question. If you are aware…
Dr. Berzin: That is dangerous statement – to say “one last question.” But anyway.
Participant: Can you stop that karmic force if you are aware of it and you’re not…
Dr. Berzin: Can you stop the karmic force? You mean the aftermath? Yes, you can purify it. You can purify your mental continuum of the negative karmic potentials so that they become super, super weak. It’s very interesting what that actually means (this is discussed in Lam-rim chen-mo by Tsongkhapa). By regretting and applying the four opponent powers and so on, you can purify the mental continuum of the negative karmic potentials in such a way that you prevent them from ripening in the way that they would have ripened. But they could still ripen into something very minor. Or what can happen is that you purify your mental continuum of the negative karmic potential, but the tendency is still there, which means that the tendency is now inactive. However, if you commit the act again, that tendency could be reactivated.
So, just because you regret and so on and resolve, “I’m not going to do it again,” and then stop doing it, there is no guaranty that you won’t start again. That’s why the understanding of voidness is the only thing that will really get rid of it. And as we’ll see with these twelve links, what you get rid of with the understanding of voidness is anything that could possibly activate that potential or tendency. If there is nothing that could activate it – since it is not something physical that’s there in any case – you can’t say that it’s still there. There is no more potential or tendency.
Let’s say that I have a tendency to drink Coca-Cola. When I die, I can’t have that tendency to drink Coca-Cola anymore. It’s finished. Or I have a tendency to write with my right hand – well, if I lose my right arm, I am not going to write with my right hand anymore. There is no possibility for that tendency to ripen into doing the action again. That’s a better example than drinking Coca-Cola.
We have only a few minutes left, so we can’t really get into a new topic. But it’s interesting. I got a book in India, which is a very detailed, huge book on the twelve links. And all this stuff that I am discussing is in the chapter of the second link – like what are the actual karmic impulses that will affect a future rebirth and how will they affect a future rebirth, and which ones have certainty and which ones don’t have certainty, and what kind of certainty are we talking about here? Then, with the third link, we get the karmic aftermath loaded onto our mental continuums, and that carries over into a future life. Then we saw that there is the development of the aggregates, basically, with the next links so that we actually experience things. And then we have contacting awareness, which is the awareness of something as pleasant, unpleasant or neutral or pleasing, unpleasing or neutral (we had a big discussion about that – I think a whole evening). We saw that that basically has to do with preferences and how we consider something –whether we consider something disgusting or we consider it delicious, like a certain type of food or a certain act? Do we consider it fun to go fishing, or do we consider it barbaric to go fishing? So, how you consider it with contacting awareness.
What comes immediately after that is a feeling of happiness or unhappiness. You know, it is pleasant or unpleasant to hear the words, “Ready, aim, fire!” and we feel happy or unhappy.
Participant: Techno music.
Dr. Berzin: Techno music. Yeah. Techno music, for Jorge, is pleasant.
But what we eventually will get to with the next links is what happens once we have these feelings of happiness or unhappiness – how we deal with that. That’s going to activate the karmic aftermath of throwing karma. That’s where things really start to happen. Do we cling to that happiness – “I don’t want it ever to stop”? Or are we desperate about the unhappiness – “I’ve got to get rid of this!”? Or are we in a neutral state, like being asleep and just wanting to stay like that? That starts the process of activating the karmic aftermath and bringing about the ripened result of another rebirth.
Questions about the Difference between the Links of Contacting Awareness and Feeling
Participant: What for me is always very confusing is to talk in this context about something already being pleasant or unpleasant. This, for me, always refers to the next link, the link of feeling.
Dr. Berzin: So now we have the question about contacting awareness. So, there is still some confusion about that, obviously – that it seems as though it’s the same as the feeling link. And although it is a mental factor, aren’t we talking about an actual physical contact?
It is not talking about a physical contact between the object, the consciousness, and the cognitive sensors, like the photosensitive cells of the eye. It is not talking about the physical act of contact despite the fact that the word is “contact.” It’s a mental factor. So, we always have to think of it as a mental factor that accompanies the consciousness when it comes together with a cognitive sensor and an object. It is the mental factor of experiencing the object as pleasant, unpleasant, or neutral. Happy or unhappy is the response that you have to that.
Pleasant, unpleasant, or neutral has to do very much with this factor called “attention,” or “paying attention,” or “consideration” – how you consider the object, like considering dirty as clean; impermanent as permanent, etc. And that has to do with previous habit and conditioning.
Participant: Can this come from different karmas?
Dr. Berzin: Sure, they come from different karmas, different karmic tendencies, I should say. Well, it depends on which tenet system you follow. If I remember correctly, in Chittamatra, the whole package of the experience comes from one karmic seed as it were; in other systems, they can come from different ones. I think it is the Chittamatra that says it all comes from one package, but don’t quote me on that. I’d have to look it up. Somebody says it. Those are the two opinions.
Participant: How can contacting awareness can be the basis for feeling?
Dr. Berzin: Well, if you think about it, it follows that when you have pleasant contacting awareness, you feel happiness and that when you have unpleasant contacting awareness of something, you have unhappiness. You can think about it in terms of the variables of liking something and not liking something. If I like it, I feel happy. To like it – to experience something with liking – is not the same as feeling happy about it, but it is the basis for feeling happy about it.
For example, I like chocolate. It is very pleasant to see the chocolate, and I feel happy. Now, I suppose, you could have, “It’s very pleasant to see the chocolate, but I am unhappy because I can’t afford it. I don’t have the money.” But then, what do you feel unhappy about? You don’t feel unhappy about chocolate; you feel unhappy about the fact that you don’t have the money to buy it. So, you have to analyze a little bit more closely.
Anyway, I think that if we think of contacting awareness in terms of liking and disliking, it makes it a little bit easier to understand. It’s a difficult one. It is. But as we discussed quite extensively, there is nothing inherent in the object that makes it pleasant or unpleasant from its own side. It has to do with how you regard it and with what your habits are and what you like and dislike.