Lam-rim 34: Fourth Law of Karma – No Loss of Karmic Results

The last principle, the fourth one, which is what we want to discuss this evening, is that there’s no loss of karmic results once their causes have been built up. What this means is that once various karmic potentials and tendencies have been built up, the ability of those potentials and tendencies to give a result is not going to go away or wear out by itself. Karmic potentials and tendencies don’t degenerate over time. 

That is a very interesting point. It has to do with continuities. 

Different Types of Continuities

There are various types of continuities, or continuums. 

There are some continuities that degenerate over time. They gradually degenerate and fall apart – like, for instance, the body. The body deteriorates moment by moment. Each moment it gets older and draws closer to its death. That is, in a sense, a natural process. There’s nothing that you have to add into the system in order for the body to grow old, fall apart and die.

There are other types of continuums that don’t degenerate at all – for example, the mental continuum. The continuity of the mental continuum goes on forever. It’s eternal. It’s affected moment by moment by what we know because the object that we know in each moment is different. So, when we hear that the mental continuum, or the mind, is “permanent,” we need to understand “permanent” in the sense of “eternal.” “Permanent” doesn’t mean that the mental continuum doesn’t change from moment to moment – that is its nature doesn’t change from moment to moment, although the object that it knows does. So we have to be very careful how we use these words, “permanent” and “impermanent” when they’re used in relation to the mind. It’s important that they not be misunderstood. 

Then there are other types of continuities such as the karmic tendencies and potentials. Tendencies and potentials don’t deteriorate all by themselves. They can, however, decrease and increase in terms of their strength because, as we’ve seen, they are affected by the things that we do – namely, by the further karmic tendencies and potentials that we build up. They network together. They can be weakened by applying opponent forces. For example, positive potentials can be weakened by anger and negative potentials can be weakened by purification. However, though the intensity of these continuums can decrease, they’re not going to deteriorate moment by moment and go steadily downhill as does the body. Unlike physical bodies, they’re not going to end just by themselves. Again, there are different ways in which things end. In the case of the tendencies and potentials, they end when they’ve given their results or, in the case of negative potentials, when they’ve been purified completely. Other than those two ways of ending, there is no way for them to go away. So, this is something that we have to think about and look more deeply at. 

Let’s just think about that for a moment. 

[meditation]

How Does the Ripening of a Karmic Potential Cause That Potential to End?

Participant: I have a problem with the idea that when one experiences the result of a negative karmic potential, the potential then goes away. For example, one kills somebody in this life, and then, in a future life, one is killed by somebody else. Why should being killed counteract the killing one did before? OK, one can purify that negative potential – that’s clear. But how does the result that ripens counteract the cause?

Dr. Berzin: You used the word “counteract.” That’s not the correct word here. How does the ripening of the karmic potential cause it to cease to exist? 

First of all, there are some karmic potentials or tendencies that give results just once, others that give several results over time. One karmic potential from one deed could give rise to either one result or many results. Also, there can be a combination of many karmic potentials, and that combination can give rise to one result or to many results. So, there are all these possibilities. In any case, eventually, the potential or tendency will be finished. It will ripen and be finished giving its result. 

So, the question really is, what is a potential or a tendency? A potential or a tendency is an imputation connecting a cause and an effect. As an imputed phenomenon, it’s the connecting factor. So, just by definition and by the nature of what a potential or a tendency is – namely, a potential or tendency to give rise to a result – it ceases to exist once it has given its result.

Participant: Let’s say that in the next life one gets killed. The imputation of a potential for getting killed is what connects this happening with one’s having killed before. Then, one lifetime later, let’s say, one is not killed, but one is very ill for one’s whole life. 

Dr. Berzin: So, basically, what you’re wondering is, how do we know when something has finished ripening? We don’t know. 

Two Types of Ripening

By the way, there are two types of ripening (smin-pa, ripen) I wanted to mention. 

• One type of ripening is like the ripening of an unripe fruit: each moment it gets riper and riper until it’s fully ripe. That would be like a network of positive potentials building up more and more until it gives the result of, let’s say, achieving the state of an arya, achieving liberation or enlightenment. That’s one type of giving rise to a result, of ripening. 
• The other type, which is with the way that karma ripens, doesn’t involve a process of maturation whereby something gets riper and riper each moment. The ripening here is more like a fruit falling off a tree when it’s ripe: the cause just exhausts (zad-pa) and finishes. 

As I say, we don’t know if a karmic potential has completely finished giving its result. So, given that situation, what do we do? What follows from the thought, “I don’t know if I’m really finished with this negative karma of having hurt somebody”? What follows is that you continue doing purification. It’s not as though you can say, “Now I have taken care of all my negative karma.” If you’ve taken care of all your negative karma, you’re a liberated being. You’re an arhat.

Participant: The idea of purification is fine. The point that I don’t understand is how this potential or tendency just goes away by giving its result. 

Dr. Berzin: A potential or tendency goes away by giving its result because a potential or tendency is an imputation that connects the cause and the result.

Participant: May I give an example?

Dr. Berzin: Please give an example.

Participant: Say you hit a billiard ball with a billiard cue. It goes in the direction of another billiard ball at a certain speed. When it hits the other ball, it stops. So, the movement and the speed are finished once the ball has passed on its force to the next one. 

Dr. Berzin: Whether the first billiard ball stops after it hits the second billiard ball depends on the spin that you put on the ball; it could continue. But let’s ignore that! I used to play billiards when I was in college. Anyway, you’re saying that the first billiard ball passes its momentum onto the other ball. 

I would modify your example. I don’t think that it’s quite accurate. When you hit the ball, it then has a potential to hit the other ball. Once it has hit the other ball, the potential to hit the other ball is finished because the potential to hit the other ball is defined in terms of its final point, which is hitting the other ball. Mind you, it might not have enough momentum to reach the other ball, but that’s beside the point.

Participant: Then it’s more a question of definition.

Dr. Berzin: That’s what I said. What is a karmic potential? It is what connects the cause and the effect.

Participant: To me, it seems that with the effect – the other ball or whatever – the energy keeps on going; it goes on somewhere else.

Dr. Berzin: Well, no. A potential is not like the billiard ball that has the spin and that continues going after it has hit the other ball. Let’s give the example of a fruit on a tree. The fruit has a potential to become ripe and fall off the tree. Once it has fallen off the tree, the potential to fall off the tree is finished.

Participant: But then it will give rise to a new plant.

Dr. Berzin: Yes. But this is only an example. Of course it will give rise to a new plant. It’s likewise when we experience getting hurt by somebody: We react, probably by getting angry and hurting the person back. In that way, we build up more potentials to do the action again or to experience a similar type of action happening back to us. So, it goes on and on and on. That’s samsara.

Participant: For me, the point was that the potential always goes on. It’s not as though it’s finished when it has given its result. It changes in another way; it goes in another direction.

Dr. Berzin: It’s not so much that it changes in another way. You can’t say that. 

Remember, karma ripens in many, many different ways. There are many different types of results. One is unhappiness, which is the result of having acted destructively. Well, because you’re unhappy, you may do other destructive actions again. However, I don’t think you can say that the destructive actions that you do after experiencing unhappiness have been committed because you’re unhappy. I don’t know that you can connect those two things as being part of the same karmic cause and effect continuum. Karma can also ripen into a future rebirth state. Due to destructive behavior, you could, for example, be born with the aggregates of a hell realm being. In that hell realm, you might kill other beings and, so, build up more negative karma. But that’s a different type of continuity than the one we’re talking about here. It’s not the same as the continuity of cause and effect.

Participant: What is it a question of?

Participant: It’s a question of the extent of the imputation. At least one can say, “The imputation is just on sequence of karmic cause and effect,” and then it’s finished. Otherwise, the energy continues.

Dr. Berzin: Well, this is interesting. He’s saying that an imputation can connect many different things, like a karmic cause and effect sequence, but that the energy continues after a result has ripened from a karmic cause. You have to be a little bit careful here. What do you mean by “energy”? Where’s the energy here? There are all the various things that are involved in the karmic process: potentials, tendencies, habits, no-longer-happenings, not-yet-happenings.

Participant: Yes. But it changes into something and, so, goes on. 

Dr. Berzin: No. You have a result. Every result can act as a circumstance for another karmic action to arise. So, in that sense, there is continuity, certainly.

Participant: So, if you have a seed, then you can have a plant from that seed. Once the plant starts growing, the seed ceases to be. And you can’t have two plants from one seed. But when you have the second plant, that plant can give rise to other seeds. 

Dr. Berzin: This is a good analogy. However, you have to be a little bit careful here because it’s not completely precise – although, no analogy is completely precise. You have a seed. The seed grows into a plant. The seed is then no longer present; it’s finished. So, you have a plant from the first seed, and that plant can give rise to further seeds. Well, “seed” is the word for karmic tendencies – the unhappiness doesn’t give rise to further karmic tendencies. What gives rise to further karmic tendencies are the destructive behaviors that you engage in because you are unhappy; it isn’t the unhappiness itself. So, your example is not quite analogous. But, sure, there are continuities. 

I think this is what you were getting at: You want to make a continuum, in a sense, out of being unhappy, experiencing nasty things happening to you, and then, as a result, acting destructively again. So, how would you connect those things in terms of a mental label? What mental label would refer to all that? I think the mental label you would use would be “samsara.” Now, that’s not the precise definition of “samsara,” but experiencing things in that way is a samsaric type of thing. The actual samsaric process is described by the twelve links, which is much more complex than what we’re talking about here. The twelve links describe the perpetuation of the whole of samsara itself – conception, birth, aging, and so on. In that process, you build up more habits of unawareness, which builds up more karmic tendencies that get planted on the mental continuum. So, it goes on and on like that. So, I think that that, “samsara,” would be the label that you would give to that type of continuum, that of the perpetuation of various patterns. But within that, you have cause and effect. 

Without the Necessary Circumstances, a Potential Cannot Give Rise to a Result

Let’s get back to the fourth law of karma, the fourth principle. Last time, somebody objected to the word “law.” However, it’s not that somebody made up these laws and is now imposing them on us. The fourth principle is that we have built up a tendency or potential, its ability to give rise to a result is not going to wear out. That tendency or potential is not going to go away until it gives rise to a result or until it’s absolutely no longer possible for a result to arise from it. 

When would it no longer be possible for a result to arise? When the circumstances for the arising of the result are incomplete. A result arises only when the necessary circumstances  are present, circumstances such as clinging and the obtainer attitude – which are described in the twelve links as basically underlying all grasping for a solid “me.” So, a potential or tendency is not going to go away, and that’s because we still have grasping for true existence. Unless we get rid of that circumstance, potentials and tendencies will continue to give rise to results.

Now, of course, we can talk about other types of circumstances, like those involved in being hit by a car, the example that we were speaking of before. Someone had to have driven the car, we had to have walked out into the street, somebody had to have built the road, etc. There are all sorts of circumstances that bring about the ripening of a potential or tendency. Ultimately, though, it’s the grasping for true existence that is behind all of it.

Participant: Yes, but does the potential really go away when the circumstances are there and it gives its result?

Dr. Berzin: Yes, because the potential is a potential to give a result. It’s the way that it’s defined.

Participant: So, then it’s just an imputation.

Dr. Berzin: Exactly. It’s just an imputation. That’s the whole point: it’s an imputation. Imputations, the way we’ve been discussing them, are abstractions, but only in the sense that they are not forms of physical phenomenon. But remember, they are also not ways of being aware of something. But just because they are either of those two doesn’t mean that they don’t exist and don’t function.

[meditation]

Let me give another example: a lifetime. A lifetime – this lifetime – is an imputation on a continuum that goes from conception to death. Once death comes, the continuity of this lifetime is finished. There may be other things that continue, that go on, but because that portion called “this lifetime” is an imputation with boundaries, having a definite beginning and a definite end, then once death comes, it is finished. The boundary of “this lifetime” does not extend into the next lifetime.  

Participant: That was my point from the beginning: it’s just by definition. It’s defined from “this” to “this,” which in the case of a lifetime, is defined from when it begins to when it ends. But you could define it totally differently.

Dr. Berzin: Well, one couldn’t define a karmic potential that way. One could define something else that way.

Participant: My second question is a totally different one: If I have the potential to get killed by somebody, but then I eliminate all the circumstances completely, could one still say there is a potential for me to get killed?

Dr. Berzin: No! That’s exactly how karma is purified – how the understanding of voidness purifies it. You have a potential or tendency as an imputation on karmic cause and effect sequence, and for the effect to occur, circumstances, necessary circumstances have to be present. Without the presence of those circumstances, the result can’t occur. If it’s absolutely impossible for those circumstances ever to occur, an effect can never arise. If an effect can never arise, then there can’t be an imputation as a connection between cause and effect. Remember, an imputed phenomenon is one that depends on a basis. If the basis no longer exists, the imputation on that basis no longer exists. So, once there can no longer be an effect, the basis – a cause and an effect – is no longer complete, and so the karmic potential or tendency connecting them no longer exists. That is how you purify karma. There’s no other way. As I described, Vajrasattva meditation and these sorts of things are just temporary cleanings of the slate. However, you haven’t gotten rid of the causes that would lead you to build up more tendencies.

Participant: But how can one be sure that it is like this? After all, there are phenomena that just wear out.

Dr. Berzin: How can you be sure that karmic potentials and tendencies aren’t the type of phenomenon that just wears out – for example, like the body?

Participant: Yeah. Or even something like being very angry: after some time, the anger gets less and less and less.

Dr. Berzin: First of all, we’re talking about potentials and tendencies. We’re not talking about forms of physical phenomena or ways of being aware of something. There’s a big difference. A way of being aware of something, such as anger, can get less and less. But that’s actually talking about only one occurrence of anger. It’s not as though the tendency to be angry is going to get less and less by itself and never occur again. It’s just temporarily not present, temporarily not giving a result. So, the tendency to get angry gives results intermittently – not all the time. 

That’s the difference between a tendency and a habit, by the way, at least in the terminology that I use.  In its strictest sense, the word “habit” is used only for the habit of grasping for true existence, which gives its result all the time. We’re always grasping for true existence. But a tendency gives rise to its results only sometimes. So, whether the tendency is to be angry or to experience the karmic result of feeling unhappy, it’s not going to make you angry or unhappy all the time. It’ll make you angry or unhappy once or maybe a few times, but not angry and unhappy every single moment, forever.  

But these potentials, tendencies and habits that we’re talking about are imputed phenomena – phenomena that rely on a basis in order to exist. They’re nonstatic phenomena that are neither ways of being aware of something nor forms of physical phenomena. They’re a different type of phenomenon. Technically speaking, they’re a type of noncongruent affecting variable (ldan-min ‘du-byed).

Can we think of an example of an imputed phenomenon that wears out? A lifespan. A lifespan is constantly getting closer to its end; it gets shorter and shorter. Though a potential or tendency is a different kind of continuum than a lifespan, there is an aspect of a karmic result, which we touched on briefly last time, that is similar, namely, the aspect of the not-yet-happening of the result – that it’s five minutes before, then four minutes before, then three minutes before, and so on. In that sense, a potential or tendency does get closer and closer to giving its result – although it’s not definite when it will give its result because the time of the ripening is affected by and dependent on circumstances. 

So, a karmic potential or tendency draws closer to its end in the sense that, when it gives the result, it’ll be finished. However, the ability of a potential or tendency to give rise to a result is not something that wears out over time. It’s not that, at first, it’s 100% sure that it’ll give a result and, if you wait a little longer, it’s only 99% sure that it’ll give a result, and if you wait even longer, it’s only 10% sure that it’ll give a result and that, in the end, it won’t give a result at all. It’s not like that. This is what this principle is saying. It’s not as though the ability of the potential or tendency to give a result is going to grow stale. But certainly, the potential to give a result gets closer and closer to the time when it will no longer exist. It will no longer exist either because you have purified it – if it is a negative one – or because it has given its result. But the fact that it will, if you haven’t purified it, give a result is not something that becomes increasingly less certain. This is the point of this principle. 

That’s very good. Thank you for helping to clarify it. Let’s think about that. 

As a consequence of understanding this fourth principle, we realize, “I’ve built up so much negative karma that I have to purify it; otherwise, it’s not going to go away.” That’s the whole point of this principle. I might have really hurt somebody by what I said or did ages ago, either in this lifetime or another lifetime (at least we can remember what we did in this lifetime), but just because so many years have passed doesn’t mean that there won’t be any karmic results. This is the point. So, I have to purify. I have to get myself out of my lazy state and purify because these negative karmic potentials are not going to go away by themselves. This is the whole point.

Participant: But real purification is only possible from the path of seeing on. Otherwise, the opponents that you use can only weaken it.

Dr. Berzin: Exactly. The real opponent starts with non-conceptual cognition of voidness, when you become an arya. That’s when it really starts to happen. Before that, you can purify only temporarily. And even if you do Vajrasattva meditation absolutely perfectly correctly, you don’t completely clean the slate because there are still the subtle tendencies that can cause you to repeat the negative actions. You haven’t guaranteed that you’re not going to repeat them. So, it’s just a temporary lessening of the weight of the karmic force.

Participant: So, one cannot really talk about purification, then, in this context. 

Dr. Berzin: Well, it is purification in the sense that it helps to diminish very, very much the ripening of the destructive potentials that we have. What can result from that? A better chance of getting a precious human rebirth, a better chance of gaining insight into the Dharma, a better chance of making progress on the path. That’s why it is done as part of ngondro (sngon-’gro, preliminary practices), before you enter into serious tantra practice: it’s so that you have fewer obstacles coming up and a greater possibility of succeeding. Otherwise, when you get into the practice, all sorts of obstacles come up. 

Preliminary Practices (Ngondro) Are Not Just for Tantra

Also, I don’t think that one should restrict this type of ngondro practice just to preliminary practice for tantra. I think that’s very shortsighted. It should be a preliminary practice for everything in the Dharma, sutra and tantra.

Participant: But it is actually for tantra.

Dr. Berzin: The preliminaries are usually done in terms of tantra, but I think this is because the Tibetans always follow combined sutra and tantra. All Tibetan Buddhism does that. But they’re specified in terms of the “shared” and “unshared” preliminaries. 

The shared preliminaries are basically lam-rim, the four thoughts that turn the mind to the Dharma, and so on. But whatever organizational scheme you use for lam-rim, the material is exactly the same; it’s just organized and named differently. Those preliminaries are called “shared” because they’re shared between sutra and tantra. 

The unshared preliminaries entail 100,000 prostrations, 100,000 recitations of the 100-syllable mantra of Vajrasattva and of a verse or mantra of guru yoga, and 100,000 mandala offerings. Those are the most generic forms of the unshared ones. In Gelugpa there are nine preliminaries, which include 100,000 water bowl offerings, 100,000 burnt offerings to Vajradaka, 100,000 recitations of the Samayavajra mantra (to purify any breaks with the close bond with one’s guru), and 100,000 tsa-tsa clay statues (making a hundred thousand of those is no joke).

There are plenty of preliminary practices. You shouldn’t think there are only four. Everything depends on what your teacher tells you to do or suggests that you do. Milarepa had to build some towers. There are all sorts of preliminaries that you could be asked to do. But, personally, I think that these preliminaries are extremely helpful not just for tantra practice but for all practice.

Participant: One can also do the refuge prayer.

Dr. Berzin: Right. There yet other practices. It depends on how you count them. In Gelugpa, prostration is done while you recite the refuge and bodhichitta prayer. In some other traditions, you recite the refuge prayer 100,000 times, you recite a bodhichitta prayer 100,000 times, and you do prostration 100,000 times. So, you do them separately. It doesn’t matter. It’s the same. It’s the same, just different styles. As they say in India, “Exactly the same, only different” – which is a very nice way of describing it. 

Where were we? We were talking about karmic potentials and tendencies. The main thrust of this fourth point is to think in terms of the negative potentials we’ve built up. They’re not going to go away by themselves. They will definitely ripen at some point, unless we do something about it. So, we had better do something about it. At minimum, we would want to stop building up more negative potentials by refraining from destructive behavior and engaging in constructive behavior. The most basic form of that is to refrain from acting destructively when the feeling of liking to do something destructive arises. We might feel like smacking that mosquito and killing it, but we don’t do it because of thinking of the negative consequences that will follow and wanting to avoid them. 

That’s part of what makes an action a constructive one – having the motivation of “I want to avoid the unhappiness that will follow.” And if we want to do it in a Mahayana way, then it’s “I want to avoid the hindrances that it will cause because those hindrances will affect my ability to help others and to reach enlightenment. If I do this action and experience the consequences of it, I’ll be less able to help others; therefore, I’m not going to kill that mosquito. I will catch it in a jar when it lands on the window, put a paper under it, and take it outside.” Or, if we are really bodhisattvas, “I will let it feed on me.” But that’s not such a beginner practice. 

Participant: Suppose I had built up a negative potential. How would the positive potentials I had built up weaken the negative potential? Please don’t use the word “imputation.” Could you give a more physical explanation?

Dr. Berzin: That means I have to find a physical analogy, even though we’re not talking about physical things; we’re talking about non-physical things. 

OK. When you have a black wall and you put a thin coat of white on it, the white makes the wall less black. So, it counters the black. How’s that?

Participant: That’s OK.

Participant: In that case, what would be the cause and what would be the result?

Dr. Berzin: The point is that the strength of the ripening of karma is not predetermined because the ripening is affected by circumstances. I keep bringing us back to the Samkhya point that’s refuted, which is that the result is already sitting inside the cause, waiting to pop out. 

The result – what’s going to happen – is not fixed. It’s not just sitting there, waiting for the right circumstance in which to pop out. In that sense, the result is… let’s not use the word “imputation.” In that sense, the result is amorphous; it’s not formed. Various circumstances are going to come along and affect the strength of the result and the form that it will take. So, if we add more negative stuff into the pile, into this network, the result of the negative force is going to be stronger; it’ll be worse. If we add a lot of positive things, the result of the negative force will be weaker. It depends on the frequency with which we do the destructive action, it depends on how strong our anger is, it depends on whether we counteract the action with positive things such as regret or reinforce it with negative things, and so on. All these factors affect how a negative potential ripens. But they’re not going to affect the fact that it will ripen. That’s the point of this fourth principle. It will definitely ripen – unless, of course, we purify. How it will ripen is affected by various things.

Why don’t we take a last few minutes to digest this, and then we will end.

[meditation]