Karma

The Constraints Regarding Five Systems of Natural Order According to Theravada Let me explain a little bit here about karmic and non-karmic impulses so that we have some idea of what we are actually talking about when we talk about karma and the issue of choice. In Theravada,...

Both the Madhyamaka and the Vaibhashika presentations of karma derive from The Extensive Great Commentarial Treatise on Special Topics of Knowledge (Chos mngon-pa bye-brag bshad-pa chen-mo, Skt. Abhidharma Mahāvibhāṣā), compiled at the Fourth Buddhist Council from the Mahayana...

Inciting and Incited Karmic Impulses  In A Discussion for the Establishment of Karma (Las-grub-pa’i rab-tu byed-pa, Skt. Karmasiddhiprakaraṇa) (Derge Tengyur vol. 136, 144B), Vasubandhu states: Suppose you ask, “Well then, has the Bhagavan (Buddha, the Vanquishing Master...

Why Haven’t We Already Built Up Enough Positive Force to Develop Bodhichitta? We’ve seen that in order to strive for bodhichitta for the first time, we need to have heard about enlightenment and understand it a little bit and have confident belief that it exists...

Review In this formulation, karma is exclusively a mental factor, an urge or impulse. It is the impulse that, while focused on an object, drives the primary consciousness and its accompanying mental factors to engage, in the next moment, in a specific action directed toward or...

Review This morning we spoke about the four noble truths in general, and then we presented what Kalachakra adds to this. The main thing that we were emphasizing was a little bit more extensive explanation of the true causes of samsara. And we went through the explanation of...

Nonrevealing Forms Can Be Known Only with Mental Cognition When we talk about a nonrevealing form, how is this known? Can we in our practice learn to be able to perceive it? “Nonrevealing” means that it doesn’t reveal its motivation to anybody. It is something that can be...

General Introduction and Review The various Tibetan traditions coming from the Buddha – Kadam, Sakya, Kagyu and Nyingma – all follow a presentation of ways to train our attitudes that comes from a common source: Shantideva’s Engaging in Bodhisattva Behavior. Shantideva’s...

Review In the discussion of the mental factor of an urge, in which we have borrowed and adapted to the Vaibhashika view the distinction between a performer and exertional impulse that Sautrantika draws, we have seen that urges that affect and drive a consciousness and its...

We were talking about the first link in this chain of dependent arising and we saw that this is the link of unawareness and it has to do with unawareness of how we and others exist. The main emphasis that we need to focus on is ourselves. We saw that there are two levels of...