Lam-rim 45: Certainty of Ripening; Positive Force Is a Buddha-Nature Factor

What I’d like to discuss now is the difference between karmic impulses about which there is certainty (nges-pa’i las) and those about which there is no certainty (ma-nges-pa’i las). Both Vasubandhu and Asanga have their own presentations of the differences between the two. 

According to the systems that Vasubandhu and Asanga have in common, some karmic impulses have certainty as to the lifetime in which the potentials and tendencies they leave on our mental continuums will begin to ripen, and some have no such certainty. Karmic potentials and tendencies can ripen (1) in this lifetime, (2) in the immediately following lifetime, or (3) in some lifetime after that. That’s speaking specifically about when they would start to ripen, because karmic potentials and tendencies can continue to ripen over many lifetimes. Regardless of when the karmic potentials and tendencies start to ripen, there is no certainty as to when they will finish ripening.  

As to the criteria determining which types of karmic potentials and tendencies have certainty of ripening within a specific time frame and which have no such certainty, Vasubandhu has one presentation and Asanga has two different ones, one simpler and one more complex. We’ll discuss the difference between Asanga’s two presentations later. First, let’s look at some general points that Asanga makes. 

According to Asanga, Four Types of Karmic Impulses: Reinforced, Non-Reinforced, Enacted, Non-Enacted

There are two variables that affect when the karmic potential from a karmic impulse will ripen and whether there is any certainty about it. These are whether or not the karmic impulse has been reinforced and, whether reinforced or not, whether or not it is enacted. A reinforced karmic impulse is one whose karmic potential has been strengthened by either the basis at which the action is directed, the type of action it is an impulse for, or the circumstance that caused the impulse to arise. The impulse is enacted if it gives rise to an action. 

If a karmic impulse is both reinforced and enacted, there is certainty about the time frame when the karmic potentials and tendencies built up from it will begin to ripen. There are three possibilities: 

1. The karmic potentials and tendencies from some types of karmic impulses will start to ripen in the same lifetime in which the actions brought on by those impulses occur. There’s a lot of discussion about which actions these are. Usually, they are very strong positive or negative actions toward our spiritual teachers, our parents, and so on that are done with a strong motivation. 
2. The karmic potentials and tendencies from other types of karmic impulses will start to ripen in the immediately following lifetime from the one in which the actions brought on by those impulses occur. These actions are the five so-called heinous crimes: (a) killing our mothers, (b) fathers, (c) an arhat, (d) causing division in the sangha, which means starting our own communities with hatred and very negative thoughts toward the Buddhist monastic community, and so on, (e) and with bad intentions drawing blood from a Buddha. The karmic potentials and tendencies from having committed any of these heinous actions will ripen in the immediately following lifetime in the form of a rebirth in the lowest hell realm.
3. The karmic potentials and tendencies from yet other types of karmic impulses will start to ripen in some lifetime after the immediately following lifetime in which the actions brought on by those impulses occur. These refer to all other actions that have been brought on by reinforced karmic impulses that are not included in the first two possibilities.

There are three types of karmic impulses that have no certainty as to when the karmic potentials and tendencies from them will start to ripen. These include (1) non-reinforced karmic impulses that are enacted, (2) reinforced karmic impulses that are not enacted, and (3) non-reinforced karmic impulses that are not enacted.   

Asanga, unlike Vasubandhu, asserts that there are also impulses for which there is no certainty that the karmic potentials built up by them will ripen at all. This is because, in the case of destructive impulses and actions, the negative karmic potentials can be eliminated from our mental continuums through purification practices. 

All Buddhist systems agree that non-conceptual cognition of the four noble truths or, specifically, of voidness rids our mental continuums of the disturbing emotions and attitudes. Various schools differ, however, as to what happens to the negative karmic potentials on our mental continuums that have not yet ripened before attaining liberation. 

The Hinayana Presentation

The Hinayana theories assert (so, this is Vasubandhu and the Theravadas) that so long as we have tainted aggregates, we – even as arhats or Buddhas – would still experience the ripening of karmic potentials (both positive and negative) and karmic tendencies in the form of results that correspond to their causes in our experience. So, negative things could still happen to us. Vasubandhu defines tainted phenomena as those items that cause more tainted phenomena (referring to disturbing emotions and attitudes) to occur or that cause these tainted phenomena to grow stronger. One way they do this is by being the focal object of a cognition. When such items are the objects cognized by either our own or someone else’s limited mind, the result is that further disturbing emotions or attitudes arise on the mental continuum of the person that cognizes them. For instance, Devadatta’s jealousy and anger grew stronger when seeing the Buddha. This caused a karmic tendency on Devadatta’s mental continuum to become activated, which then led him to try to murder the Buddha.  

Vasubandhu includes all nonstatic phenomena, except true pathway minds, as being tainted, including the aggregates of a Buddha or arhat, and so both of them still have karmic potentials among their aggregates that have not yet finished ripening. As a result, Buddha got a splinter, some arhats were beaten up, and some were even killed. However, they would not experience such happenings with the suffering of unhappiness and pain, gross unhappiness and pain. They would, due to their having tainted aggregates, experience them with either tainted happiness or tainted neutral feelings. These feelings, being nonstatic, are still tainted, according to Vasubandhu. For him, only true pathway minds and static phenomena – namely, space and analytical and true stoppings – are untainted.  

That’s an interesting point. If I were beaten up, I would not necessarily be happy about it, but I would, let’s say as Buddha, still have either a blissful state of mind, which is not ordinary happiness or a neutral state of mind – though it would still be a tainted phenomenon. Since Devadatta would be freaked out by observing that, his observing that would activate his own negative tendencies to kill. However, Buddha’s leftover karmic tendencies from having beaten others in previous lives won’t ripen into results that correspond to their causes in his behavior: he’s not going to repeat negative actions. 

Nirvana with and without Residue

According to the Hinayana systems, however, there is a difference between nirvana with residue (lhag-bcas-kyi mya-ngan ‘das), which is liberation attained in this lifetime, and nirvana without residue (lhag-med mya-ngan ‘das), which is liberation attained at the time of death. Upon death, the mental continuum extinguishes like a candle, they say. By that time, everything would have finished ripening in some form or another.

Participant: Isn’t it possible for a Buddha in any lifetime, not just a lifetime in which they achieved enlightenment, to cause the negative potentials of others to be activated when they see him?

Dr. Berzin: Probably, yes. First of all, in the Hinayana systems, the mental continuum of a Buddha finishes upon his death in the lifetime in which he achieves enlightenment. It’s only the Mahayanists that say that a Buddha’s mind-stream continues. But it’s an interesting question whether or not a Buddha, from a Mahayana point of view, could cause another person to get angry. In any case, they would agree that Devadatta got angry with the Buddha and tried to kill him. 

Participant: Wouldn’t it be against voidness to say that nobody could see the Buddha in a negative fashion?

Dr. Berzin: I’ve heard teachings that nobody would, for instance, have sexual attraction to a Buddha, but that might only be a Mahayana teaching. A Buddha wouldn’t cause that type of disturbing emotion to arise in somebody, regardless of what form a Buddha might appear in. I don’t know that it would necessarily follow that no one could develop anger toward a Buddha. And I don’t know if the account of Devadatta trying to kill the Buddha is only found in the Hinayana sources. Mahayanists say that Buddha got a splinter in his foot or whatever just to demonstrate karma, cause and effect, to others. But it also doesn’t make sense that Buddha being a circumstance for the ripening of Devadatta’s tendency to commit murder was just a show to teach us karmic cause and effect. 

The question comes down to whether our actions or just simply our aggregates acting as a circumstance for the ripening of someone else’s karmic potentials is a type of ripening of our own karmic potentials. I don’t think so, since such type of ripening is not listed among the effects that ripen from karmic potentials and tendencies.  

Anyway, let’s go on. I don’t want to spend too much time on these details. I’d like to get into the purification process.

The Mahayana Presentation

What Mahayana states, as does Asanga, is that when arhats achieve liberation, they can still experience the results of the karmic tendencies that correspond to their causes in one’s experience. But when they attain nirvana without residue, only the samsaric phase of their mental continuums comes to an end; their purified mental continuums go on, and they can be reborn in a pure land, etc., with mental bodies made of pure light. They are even able to develop bodhichitta there and go on to follow the final stages of the bodhisattva path to enlightenment. Also, they don’t build up any more karmic potentials. The habits of karma that are left on their mental continuums just give rise to their limited awareness, which prevents their omniscience. It’s only when they attain enlightenment that they get rid of that.

Now let’s talk about Buddhas. According to the Mahayana systems, a Buddha does not attain either nirvana with residue or nirvana without residue. A Buddha achieves what’s called a “nonabiding nirvana” (mi-gnas-pa’i mya-ngan ‘das). So, a Buddha does not abide in the extreme of either samsara or nirvana. 

Now, in all the Mahayana tenet systems except for Gelug Prasangika, they say that a Buddha achieves liberation and enlightenment at the same time. At that point, a Buddha’s finished with all karmic aftermath. It doesn’t have to finish ripening first because the attainment of liberation and enlightenment gets rid of it altogether. The Gelug Prasangika say a Buddha attains liberation first and, then, enlightenment. But, likewise, they say that a Buddha gets rid of all the karmic aftermath and that the aftermath doesn’t have to ripen before he or she has attained enlightenment. So, when Buddha got a splinter in his foot, he was, according to Mahayana, just demonstrating cause and effect.

Anyway, these are details. It’s not so necessary to go deeply into them. The point is, how do we purify ourselves of negative karma? That’s really the point of all of this. According to the different Buddhist philosophical systems, there are different ways of understanding how we purify ourselves of it. According to some systems, we can’t get rid of it: it has to ripen, at least in terms of something negative happening to us, though we wouldn’t experience any suffering. According to other systems, we would still experience negative things happening to us in the lifetime in which we were liberated and became arhats. But in the lifetimes after that – according to Mahayana – we wouldn’t experience anything negative happening to us. And according to the Mahayana systems, a Buddha doesn’t experience anything negative happening to him in the lifetime in which he attains enlightenment. 

So, that’s in terms of negative things.

“Severed Roots of Virtue”

What about positive things? There’s a whole discussion about “severed roots of virtue.” Have you ever heard of that? We have these so-called roots of positive force. Some texts say that it’s possible to do such negative acts that all the roots of positive force are cut, making it impossible to become liberated or enlightened. Most texts don’t actually agree with that. What they say is that when it comes to the positive karmic potentials being eliminated and being unable to ripen, “this can occur through a gradual process, by the force of repeated, very strong, distorted, antagonistic thinking with which we deny that behavioral cause and effect function and, therefore, that there’s any value in restraining ourselves from being destructive.” Thinking like that for a really, really long time, they say, will cut these roots. However, they also say that this is temporary – that the elimination of the roots of virtue is only a so-called elimination: they are not severed forever. They can be reconnected if we subsequently begin to think that our actions might have consequences, or we develop a correct outlook concerning behavioral cause and effect. 

So, this is a very important point: No matter how negative we are, the positive force that we have on our mental continuums cannot be completely eliminated; somehow, it can be reactivated. The negative force, on the other hand, can be completely eliminated. So, that becomes an interesting question: Why? What do you think?

Participant: The negative roots are not in accordance with reality, and positive roots are in accordance with reality.

Dr. Berzin: But the positive ones are built up with karma, which means that they’re mixed with naivety about reality.

Participant: But the positive ones are a bit closer to reality than the negative ones.

Dr. Berzin: They are?

Participant: Maybe Christians would say it’s by the grace of God or something like that that you’re not damned.

Dr. Berzin: Well, here, it’s saying that nobody is damned forever.

Participant: “Damned” – you could look at it in this way.

Dr. Berzin: Yeah, but what would a Buddhist explanation of it be?

Participant: I agree with Mark that, even though we are naive about reality, the constructive behavior we do brings us closer to reality.

Dr. Berzin: It brings us closer to reality. OK, that’s a little bit better.

Participant: Well, there are two levels of ignorance involved in doing something negative.

Dr. Berzin: What are these two levels?

Participant: Ignorance about cause and effect and ignorance about reality.

Dr. Berzin: Ignorance of cause and effect and ignorance of reality. Very good. What did this earlier point talk about? It talked about having a negative attitude toward cause and effect; it didn’t talk about not having a correct view of reality. So, very good: you paid attention. Saying that there’s no cause and effect – that our behavior has no effect and that it therefore doesn’t matter what we do – is what really devastates the roots of any positive force that we’ve built up. 

But in any case, the positive force is going to be mixed with naivety about reality, the same as destructive behavior is.

Participant: That is true, but at least ignorance about cause and effect is gone or is strongly reduced.

Dr. Berzin: Very good!

Participant: Also, the positive, constructive actions are at least compatible with correct understanding.

Dr. Berzin: That also is true: they’re compatible with a correct view of voidness. 

What about Buddha-nature? Do we bring in Buddha-nature at all? Think about it.

[meditation]

Buddha-Nature Factors Are Innate Features of Our Mental Continuums

OK, if everybody has Buddha-nature, is there a way in which we could make it impossible for ourselves ever to become Buddhas?

Participant: No.

Dr. Berzin: No. But that’s the point: everybody can become a Buddha. Why can everybody become a Buddha?

Participant: Because everybody is empty of existing from their own side.

Dr. Berzin: So, can the table become enlightened?

Participant: No. There is nothing inherent in mental continuums.

Dr. Berzin: There is nothing inherent? Be careful what you mean by “inherent.” Aren’t there any good qualities?

Participant: Not inherently.

Dr. Berzin:  Let’s be clear. There are innate qualities that are part of the mental continuum, of everybody’s mental continuums. Inherent means that those qualities have the power from their own sides to establish their own existence – and such power they don’t have. 

The reason, basically, that everyone can become a Buddha is because the mental continuum is not inherently stained by impossible ways of existing, the disturbing emotions, and so on: it is, by nature, pure. 

Buddha-Nature Factors – Networks of Positive Force and Deep Awareness

It’s an interesting thing. What are the Buddha-nature factors? What does it say in sutra? We have a network of positive force and a network of deep awareness. Everybody has these two networks. The network of positive force is the obtaining cause for the Form Bodies of a Buddha. It has to be supplemented by the network of deep awareness. The network of deep awareness, supplemented by the network of positive force, is the obtaining cause for the mind of a Buddha. Plus, there is the ability of the mental continuum to be inspired. That is out of Uttaratantra, rGyud bla-ma in Tibetan, The Furthest Everlasting Stream, Maitreya’s text – a very, very fundamental text. Why is it said that those are the factors that will transform into the Buddha-bodies? That becomes an interesting question: Why? 

When it comes to deep awareness, we have the five types of deep awareness. Although the actual network of deep awareness is only built up by the non-conceptual cognition of voidness, there is, nevertheless, this presentation of the five types of deep awareness – that the mental continuum of everybody has these five: (1) it takes in information like a mirror, which is the mirror-like deep awareness; (2) it puts things into categories, which is the equalizing deep awareness; (3) it individuates things, which is the individualizing deep awareness; (4) it knows how to relate to things, which is the  accomplishing deep awareness; (5) it knows what things are, which is the dharmadhatu deep awareness. Everybody has those in every rebirth. So, we can say those are part of Buddha-nature. 

But what about this positive force? What’s positive that everybody has? That’s the question. Is it because we are basically good? This is what we find a lot in Chinese thought, which basically comes from the Confucian philosophy of Mencius (Mengzi) – namely, that mankind is basically good. Is that what Buddha-nature is talking about in Buddhism? They don’t even use those words, do they? What’s good about it?

Participant: From a tantric point of view, would you say that everybody has the subtlest mind?

Dr. Berzin: Yes. 

Participant: It’s there, so somehow you can always approach it. 

Dr. Berzin: Right. But this raises an interesting point: Is the subtlest mind unspecified – in other words, unspecified by Buddha as being either constructive or destructive – or is it constructive? It’s constructive according to tantra. This is something that, again, is open to debate because then we have the question: If clear light mind is constructive, is the clear light mind of death also constructive? There are those that say no, the clear light mind, certainly from a sutra point of view, cannot be said to be constructive. But there are many texts that say that it is constructive, but that’s looking primarily from a tantra point of view. But, again, what about the clear light mind of death? If it’s constructive, then, of course, we have basic positive force there. 

Is the Instinct of Self-preservation a Positive Innate Factor?

Compassion is taken as a Buddha-nature factor. It could be mixed with grasping for a self and so on. It could be directed just at ourselves in terms of self-preservation. What is compassion? It is the wish for others to be free from suffering and the causes for suffering. If that wish is directed toward ourselves – “I want to be free of suffering” – it’s self-preservation. The instinct for self-preservation is certainly there, isn’t it? Everybody has that. Even an ant or a worm has that. So, this could be taken as positive, couldn’t it? It’s just mixed with grasping for a self. Mind you, we could have that compassion directed at others and have it be mixed with grasping for them as well. 

Think about it: What is innately positive and constructive that would account for the fact that we could never rid the mental continuum of all the positive force but that we could rid it of all the negative force? Besides this, when we understand voidness, we don’t get rid of the positive force because positive force has to do with the understanding of reality. We do, however, get rid of the positive tainted karmic potential, because that’s based on an incorrect understanding of reality. If we get rid of that positive tainted karmic potential as well as the negative one, we get rid of all karmic potential. 

Participant: I can understand how one could associate the drive for self-preservation with Buddha-nature. But I don’t think it’s necessarily positive. I think it would be going a bit far to say that.

Dr. Berzin: I’m just bringing it up as a suggestion that self-preservation could be seen as something positive. But you’re saying that it’s not necessarily positive – that self-preservation is very selfish.

Participant: It could be selfish.

Dr. Berzin: Well, it’s definitely selfish.

Participant: And it could be destructive.

Dr. Berzin: It could also be positive: “I want to live long in order to be able to benefit others.” But, certainly, it could be destructive.

Participant: I would think that it’s already constructive to want to help myself. That’s a ground for understanding that I want to be happy. 

Dr. Berzin: Very good! Self-preservation is a consequence of one of the basic axioms in Buddhism: Everybody wants to be happy, and nobody wants to be unhappy.

Participant: If everybody has this understanding, then it can’t be destructive.

Dr. Berzin: Well, everybody has this drive, not this understanding, to be happy. And that’s constructive, even if it’s selfish. Or is it?

Participant: I guess some animals have this drive very strongly. They probably kill one or two thousand other animals just to eat.

Participant: So, on one side, you have the positive aspect of “I want to be happy,” and on the other side, you have two thousand victims as a consequence.

Dr. Berzin: Right. So, now, this is an interesting point. An animal, let’s say a lion, has this positive aspect – if we’re going to look at it that way – of wanting to be happy. But on the other hand – and as it says in the teachings, everybody wants to be happy, but most people don’t know what the true cause of happiness is – the lion kills many thousands of other animals and, so, builds up all these negative things. Now, certainly, the positive force could be weakened by all these negative things so that it becomes very ineffectual. Even so, what this point is saying is that we can’t eliminate positive force completely. Nothing can eliminate it completely. The animal certainly doesn’t know about cause and effect, does it?

Participant: Yeah, the animal will not change and start seeking unhappiness.

Dr. Berzin: Right. The animal is not going to choose unhappiness. Even if one is a masochist, the pain one chooses is viewed as happiness.

Participant: That’s true even if one commits suicide.

Dr. Berzin: Even with suicide, you do it because you want to be happy, and you think that staying alive is not the way to be happy. 

Participant: I agree that this primal instinct is a ground for constructive actions, because I think it’s hard to want to do something positive for others if you don’t have this instinct to be happy yourself. How can you want to share happiness or to make other people happy if you don’t have this?

Dr. Berzin: There are some that will even sacrifice themselves in order to bring happiness to others. Even a mother bird will do that: she will deprive herself of food in order to feed her chicks. One doesn’t have to be a terribly sophisticated life form for that. It’s preservation of the species.

Participant: I was wondering what it is that we already have that is positive. I was thinking that the way we come into life is already an act of love somehow. 

Dr. Berzin: This is also a good point. His Holiness the Dalai Lama points this out – that compassion is something that is biological. Most mothers have compassion for the baby, and the baby instinctively goes to the mother for warmth, protection, milk, etc. As soon as they get out of the womb, they crawl up the mother’s belly to get to the nipples for milk. So, this basic aspect of love and compassion is pretty much innate. 

Then His Holiness always brings up the example of sea turtles that lay their eggs, go off and never come back. So, they never see the young. He always wants someone to conduct an experiment by bringing the mother sea turtle back after the young have been hatched to see if there’s any type of bond between them. Well, nobody’s been able to do that. It’s not so easy to identify which sea turtle lays which eggs.

Participant: The act of sex, also, is like exchanging – giving and receiving.

Dr. Berzin: It doesn’t have to be. It could be a rape.

Participant: That’s true. But I think it’s also an act of self-preservation.

Dr. Berzin: Well, not necessarily. It could just be for pleasure. It could also be motivated by anger – wanting to humiliate the other person, for example.

Participant: It’s motivated by attachment.

Participant: But that’s not the only thing. It’s not necessarily so that everybody’s filled just with attachment, hate, or whatever. From time to time, there are some positive motivations.

Dr. Berzin: Right. So, does even the worst dictator who massacres millions – Hitler, Stalin, etc. – have roots of positive force in them?

Participant: Yes. Hitler was very nice to his dog.

Participant: And he loved a woman.

Dr. Berzin: He loved a woman. He also killed her at the end.

In any case, what this point is saying is that no matter how much positive force is weakened, there is a basic positive force that is part of the nature of the mental continuum. And what has been weakened can be revitalized; so, nothing can eliminate it. On the other hand, negative force can be eliminated – by the understanding of voidness. And the part of positive force that can be eliminated is the part that’s tainted, that’s mixed with confusion. The positive force that’s built up with the understanding of voidness will go on. That will go on. 

Participant: This is just an idea. Scientists don’t really know what triggered the Big Bang because they feel that everything before it might have been in complete equilibrium. But there must have been some deficiency there between energy and matter or whatever triggered the thing. Maybe this is what triggers our existence – that we have a flaw in our equilibrium of good and bad, positive and negative, and that the positive is more prominent from the beginning.

Dr. Berzin: What he’s saying is that scientists are puzzled as to what could have caused the Big Bang, what could have triggered it. If everything was in a state of equilibrium before the Big Bang… but the Big Bang is supposed to be the source of everything, so nothing could have existed before the Big Bang, according to that theory. But if something existed pre-Big Bang, it obviously could not have been in a state of equilibrium; hence, there was the Big Bang. So, he’s asking is it similarly the case when it comes to the nature of the mental continuum (which has no beginning, mind you) – that there is not an equilibrium between positive and negative things; instead, there is a predominance of the positive. Now, Buddhism isn’t saying that, at the beginning, the mental continuum was positive and then the negative came in – like Adam falling from grace when he ate the apple. It’s not saying that. 

Participant: And at a given moment, the mental continuum might have more of the negative.

Dr. Berzin: There have certainly been philosophers that have said that human nature is basically bad and others that have said that it is basically good. Is Buddhism saying that human nature, not just human nature but the nature of the mental continuum is basically constructive, basically positive? Is that a general axiom here?

Participant: It’s a condition for what we are. It’s just how we came about.

Dr. Berzin: Well, to say that’s how we all came about assumes that there was a beginning. There is no beginning, from the Buddhist point of view. Ignorance has no beginning, so our negative potentials have no beginning. Bur our positive potentials also have no beginning. Both of them have no beginning. However, one kind can be eliminated. The negative potentials can only be tainted: they’re mixed with confusion. The positive ones can either be mixed with confusion or not mixed with confusion. So, this gets back to what you originally said, Mark. You didn’t say it exactly like this, but the positive ones will not be eliminated by the understanding of voidness, though the tainted aspect of them will be. Why?

Participant: They are supported by the understanding of voidness.

Dr. Berzin: Why? Why would the positive potentials be supported by the understanding of voidness? When we have an understanding of voidness, we can still act constructively. On the other hand, when we have the understanding of voidness, can we still act destructively? If I think that killing you doesn’t matter because you are like an illusion – therefore, you don’t exist – do I have a correct understanding of voidness?

Participant: No.

Dr. Berzin: No. So, think about it: Why is being constructive in accord with reality?

Participant: With the correct understanding, one understands the interdependency of everything and also the law of cause and effect.

Dr. Berzin: Right. As Tsongkhapa emphasizes, when we understand voidness correctly, we understand dependent arising, both the deepest level of dependent arising, which is in terms of mental labeling, and the conventional level, which is in terms of behavioral cause and effect.

Participant: So, then we would be very careful.

Dr. Berzin: Why would we want to be careful?

Participant: Because we wouldn’t want to harm ourselves and others.

Dr. Berzin: Why?

Participant: Because we want to be happy. Everybody wants to be happy. It’s been like that since beginningless time.

Dr. Berzin: Now, I have asked this question before, but I don’t think we came up with a good answer. Why does everybody want to be happy? Why do we want to be happy?

Participant: I do not think that there’s a rational answer to this. It only makes sense if we just take it as is.

Dr. Berzin: Remember, there are four axioms for analyzing the validity of anything. One is its functionality. Another is what it depends on. Another is establishment by reason. The fourth is the nature of things – it’s just the way things are. That doesn’t seem like a very nice thing that it’s saying – that we have to just accept certain things: “That’s just the way it is.” “Why is there such a thing as mind?” “Well, there just is.”

Participant: But it can be an axiom. In science, there are a lot of things that are like this.

Dr. Berzin: Right. Why can’t there be axioms, is what he’s saying. In science, there are certain axioms, and in Buddhism, also, there are certain axioms. “It’s just the way it is – everybody wants to be happy.”

Participant: We can see how, even if someone has had a very, very destructive childhood, something positive can develop independently of those experiences.

Dr. Berzin: Right. So, everybody wants to be happy, and everybody has at least some aspect of a network of positive force. So, even if somebody has had a terrible childhood, there could still be some positive qualities that the person could develop independently of those terrible experiences. That’s true. That gives us some hope, doesn’t it?

So, that was the Hinayana view – that the so-called elimination of these roots of positive force is only temporary. They’re not severed forever; they can be reconnected. Later Indian Mahayana masters of the Madhyamaka School, such as Chandrakirti and Shantideva, clarify what Vasubandhu said. They explain that it’s not actually possible to lose our positive karmic potentials so that they never ripen. To say otherwise would contradict the basic Mahayana teachings on Buddha-nature. This is what I was saying – that part of Buddha-nature is this network of positive force. 

Now, here comes a good point: “If the positive force is formally dedicated toward our attainment of enlightenment, it will not be exhausted until Buddhahood is attained.” In other words, we can’t get rid of it. These masters assert that “even one moment of anger can devastate eons of undedicated positive force” – such as positive karma for better rebirth, etc. – “so that their ripening will be delayed and the strength of their ripening weakened.” So, what it’s saying is that it’s the undedicated positive force that is devastated. If the positive force is dedicated, it will never be gone. 

Some Tibetan commentaries say, “This assertion refers specifically to anger that is extremely strong, not regretted later, and is directed toward a bodhisattva, and also to positive karmic potential that’s built up with neither the method of bodhichitta dedication nor an understanding of selflessness” – i.e., lack of true identity – “But even in such extreme cases, neither anger nor distorted antagonistic thinking completely destroys or severs our roots of virtue.” 

“Devastate” versus “Destroy”

Tsongkhapa explains in Lam-rim chen-mo (Grand Presentation of the Graded Stages of the Path), that “the word bcom” – here translated as “devastate” – “can, in fact, also be understood literally as ‘destroy’ but specifically in the sense that anger totally destroys the force of a karmic potential to ripen into the level of intensity of happiness that it would otherwise ripen into. Nevertheless, that karmic potential still has the force to ripen into a weaker level of intensity of happiness.”

Participant: Is that the only way he describes it – that this is the only manner of destruction?

Dr. Berzin: I don’t know. This is the quote that I have. I don’t know if he explains it elsewhere. You’ve probably studied this in more depth.

Participant: In a commentary to Madhyamaka-avatara (Engaging in the Middle Way), Tsongkhapa seems to explain that specific ripenings can actually be utterly stopped. You have a certain positive potential, and then, if the anger is sufficiently strong, it can, in the worst case, completely prevent that potential from giving rise to any positive result. It’s one of the three levels of intensity that he describes. And it seems that even dedicated positive force can be destroyed.

Dr. Berzin: But that’s open to debate, surely.

Participant: Tsongkhapa himself seems to say that the dedication prevents the ripening of the result from exhausting the potential but that it doesn’t protect the potential from being destroyed by something negative.

Dr. Berzin: I don’t understand. The ripening can’t be exhausted?

Participant: The ripening does not exhaust the potential. So, when the potential gives rise to a result, the potential will not be exhausted. It can still give rise to further results.

Dr. Berzin: You’re talking about something that’s dedicated to enlightenment and that ripens in enlightenment.

Participant: Yes.

Dr. Berzin: Well, then the potential continues. Even if it ripens into enlightenment, it continues ripening into the enlightening activity of a Buddha.

Participant: And it’s not something that can ripen into something small and then stop ripening.

Dr. Berzin: Right. It doesn’t ripen into something small and then stops ripening. But we were talking about having anger toward a bodhisattva before becoming enlightened and what happens to the positive force that we have built up and dedicated to enlightenment.

Participant: Supposedly, that positive force could still be destroyed.

Dr. Berzin: This anger could destroy it completely? I don’t know. In Lam-rim chen-mo, what Tsongkhapa says is that it destroys its ability to ripen into what it would originally ripen into. So, he clarifies. The potential still has the ability to ripen into something, but what it would ripen into would be much, much weaker. But then Tsongkhapa gives different answers in different commentaries. That’s certainly the case. 

Participant: Maybe different answers were for different disciples.

Participant: I have a problem with the idea of utter destruction.

Dr. Berzin: You have a problem with it, but this is what Geshe Thekchog said.

Participant: I even understood it like that from Tsongkhapa’s commentary.

Participant: Is it possible that Tsongkhapa changed his mind as he got older?

Dr. Berzin: Well, Tsongkhapa changed his mind about a lot of things as he got older. 

Anyway, in Lam-rim chen-mo, he says that “devastate” is the usual way of understanding it –that anger weakens the positive force, or potential; it postpones its ripening and causes it to ripen into something much weaker when it does eventually ripen. Then Tsongkhapa comments that the word “destroy” can also actually mean destroy, not just devastate, meaning that anger can destroy the potential’s ability ever to ripen into what it would have ripened into had one not gotten angry.

In any case, the point is that this comment about one moment of anger destroying all our positive force – which is all that it says in the verses – has to be understood correctly. It doesn’t mean that if I get angry at the dog for going to the bathroom on the floor that that’s it – that I’m never going to become liberated or enlightened. We have to understand that it’s quite specific: we have to get angry at a bodhisattva. It’s because of this that it is said that we have to be careful. We never know who is and who isn’t a bodhisattva. 

But what this point really underlines is the importance of the dedication. The dedication to enlightenment is very important; otherwise, things will not be stable. 

Let’s just reflect on that for a few minutes before we end.

[meditation]

OK. What have we covered? We’ve said that we have positive karmic force, or potential, and negative karmic force, or potential, and that we continue to build up more positive and negative karmic potentials. Some potentials have certainty as to the lifetime in which they will ripen – this lifetime, the immediately following lifetime, or some lifetime after that. Some have no certainty as to the lifetime in which they will ripen – for instance, those that are built up from having thought over a long period of time about committing an action but not actually having done it. 

Also, some types of karma that we’ve built up will never ripen. For instance, when we attain the patience stage of an applying pathway mind – the so-called path of preparation, the second of the five pathway minds – the negative karmic potential to be reborn in lower realms will no longer ripen (even the Theravadins agree). Those potentials are finished. So, there won’t be any throwing karma leading to rebirth in one of the three worst rebirth states. So, similarly, when we attain liberation, the karmic potentials to be reborn in better rebirths won’t ripen either. According to some theories, we will, in the lifetime in which we attain liberation, still experience things happening to us that are similar to what we’ve done before. We will experience those until we die in those lifetimes. Other theories say that that’s the case with arhats but certainly not with Buddhas. There are a lot of different opinions. 

In any case, we saw that there is a difference between what can be eliminated forever and what cannot. Negative karmic force can be eliminated forever with the understanding of voidness, and the positive karmic force cannot be eliminated. And even though anger can devastate that positive force, there’s always going to be some positive karmic force there, which is what will enable us to become Buddhas. 

In particular, what we have to emphasize is the dedication toward enlightenment, toward becoming a Buddha to ensure that that type of karmic potential is secured. That potential might be weakened such that the attainment of Buddhahood gets very much delayed – that, for sure, can happen; however, that potential can’t be completely devastated. So, what’s very important is that dedication to enlightenment. 

Next time, we’ll look at the whole purification process for getting rid of negative karmic potentials. We’ll look at how that works and what can we accomplish with Vajrasattva purification and so on. 

So, let’s end with a dedication. We think, “Whatever positive force, whatever understanding has come from this, may it go deeper and deeper and act as a cause to reach enlightenment for the benefit of all.” And when you say that, don’t just say it. What does it actually mean to dedicate positive force? What does it feel like? Anybody? It’s not just going “blah, blah, blah.”

Dedicating acts as a positive karmic force, and that karmic force will continue. So, how do you actually dedicate that positive force? Is it just saying words? You can say words with no feeling whatsoever. And even if you have an understanding of what the words mean, would that understanding actually bring about the result you are dedicating toward? What does it mean to dedicate? How do you do it?

Participant: You imagine that this positive force is increasing the network of positive qualities up to the goal.

Dr. Berzin: So, you’re imagining that this positive force gets put into a sort of piggy bank?

Participant: Yes, The merit bank!

Dr. Berzin: So, you imagine that it’s getting fuller and fuller toward enlightenment? Is that what you think?

Participant: One imagines what enlightenment is about.

Dr. Berzin: So, you imagine what it’s about?

Participant: Also, when you offer some action, something that you think is good, you’re not just waiting to get the results of it for yourself. It’s an offering. 

Dr. Berzin: That’s a very important point. You’re not doing it with the thought that “I’m going to gain something from this, and I’m going to be eternally happy.” You’re doing it as an offering. So, what is the mental action like? What does it feel like?

Participant: Openness.

Dr. Berzin: Openness – you have to really mean it.

Participant: You have to believe it.

Dr. Berzin: That’s true. You have to believe it, and you have to really mean it. I always describe it as mentally giving it a push in that direction. What is it like for you?

Participant: “I want to be a Buddha.”

Dr. Berzin: Right. So, it’s a very, very strong wish.

Participant: And I know I will do it. I will get it!

Dr. Berzin: This is also an important point – having some confidence that it will actually work, that it will actually act as a cause to reach enlightenment. 

There are a lot of factors involved in making the dedication truly meaningful, aren’t there? So, let’s consider that when we make our dedication.

Participant: And it feels like happiness, I think.

Dr. Berzin: That, also, is a factor – rejoicing, feeling happy about it.

Participant: Especially when you know it works.

Dr. Berzin: Right, especially when you’re convinced that it works – so, having the conviction.

OK. Thank you.