Lam-rim 50: Reinforced and Enacted Karmic Impulses

Now we’re up to Asanga’s simpler presentation, found in Abhidharmasamuccaya (Anthology of Special Topics of Knowledge), of two variables that concern the certainty or uncertainty of the lifetime in which we will begin to experience the karmic consequences of our various karmic actions – unless, of course, the karmic potentials from these actions are purified away. These variables are whether the karmic impulse for a physical or verbal action has been reinforced (bsags-pa) or not and whether that karmic impulse has been enacted (byas-pa) or not. A karmic impulse that has been enacted is one for any physical or verbal action that has caused the proper execution of the action – in other words, the action is actually committed, and implicit is that it has reached its intended finale or outcome. A karmic impulse that has been reinforced is one for any physical or verbal action whose karmic potential has been intensified, or strengthened, by having deliberated the action for a long time beforehand. Deliberating, here, means thinking over whether or not to commit a certain action and deciding to do it. It’s not just having the thought to do or to say something. If we simply think to yell at somebody, that’s just the mental action of thinking a negative thought.

But as Gyaltsab Je points out, if we deliberate the action for a long time beforehand, even if we decide not to commit it, or even if we do decide to commit it but we don’t actually commit it – we don’t yell at the person – we’ve still built up a strengthened karmic potential for a reinforced karmic impulse for the action to arise.

Five Types of Karmic Impulses “to Be Considered” That May or May Not Be Reinforced

In this simpler presentation, Asanga lists five types of karmic impulses for physical and verbal actions that are “to be considered.” “A karmic impulse that is to be considered” is the literal translation of the original Sanskrit term, saṃcetanīya karma. To consider committing an action means to think over whether or not to do it and come to the conclusion to do it. The Sanskrit term that Asanga uses is a gerundive, “to be considered,” which implies that it can be considered but not that it must necessarily be considered. Thus, it’s not quite clear from Asanga’s presentation, the extent to which thinking an action over, even if it’s for a long time – in other words, deliberating for a long time – plays a role in the karmic impulse for the physical or verbal action being reinforced or non-reinforced. 

Jinaputra Yashomitra’s presentation of these five types of karmic impulses in Explanation of (Asanga’s) “Anthology of Special Topics of Knowledge” (Abhidharmasamuccaya-vyakhya), which is a more detailed presentation, makes one think that other factors might have more relevance here and that, possibly, these five karmic impulses are exceptions to those that could otherwise be reinforced or not. In other words, there are actions, such as killing someone, that we could consider committing or not beforehand, but here are five of those types of actions where it doesn’t matter whether or not we think the action over before we commit them. Another factor affects their being reinforced or not. Gyaltsab Je, in his commentary to these texts, makes this quite explicit.

Gyaltsab Je explains that the first three are karmic impulses for actions of the body or speech that, whether or not deliberated beforehand, if enacted, are not reinforced. There is no certainty in which lifetime the karmic potential from this action will begin to ripen. Gyaltsab Je then mentions the case where these three actions are deliberated and decided upon beforehand but are not committed. In such cases, a strengthened karmic potential is nonetheless built up for a reinforced karmic impulse to arise. Therefore, when a karmic impulse for committing such an action arises in the future, it will be a reinforced karmic impulse, and there will be certainty as to the lifetime in which its karmic potential will begin to ripen, depending on many other factors, such as the person or object at which the action is directed. 

The last two types of karmic impulses in the list are always enacted and are always reinforced. Gyaltsab Je doesn’t explicitly state that it makes no difference whether or not they are deliberated beforehand, but this is the implicit meaning. They are already reinforced, so even if they are deliberated beforehand, it makes no difference, and there seems to be no possibility that they are not enacted. The karmic potential from committing such an action always has certainty of the lifetime it will begin to ripen in.

Let’s go through the list. In my explanations, I will at times be drawing from Jinaputra Yashomita’s presentation.

The first is: 

[1] A karmic impulse for committing an action to be considered that has come from the order of others. 

So, here, we are being ordered to do something against our will. As Jinaputra Yashomitra explains, we’re being forced to do something that we don’t want to do. An example would be a soldier who is forcefully ordered by an army commander to execute an enemy prisoner. If they execute the prisoner, even though they don’t want to do it, the karmic impulse for the action of killing is enacted, but it is not reinforced. Whether they had time to think it over before agreeing to shoot makes no difference. Because they were forced to kill someone, the karmic potential from their action is not reinforced. Think about that. If we are forced by somebody to do something destructive that we don’t want to do, doesn’t it make sense that the karmic force from that would be weaker and the karmic consequences less heavy than really wanting to do it oneself on one’s own initiative?

Participant: What about the person who gives the order to kill? I would think that the army commander would have even heavier karma than the soldier.

Dr. Berzin: As far as I understand, the strength of the negative karmic potential built up by the commander is the same as that built up by the soldier. However, it would be built up from the destructive action of speech, not from the destructive action of body.

Participant: I think the commander would build up even heavier negative karmic potentials because he deliberated giving the order.

Dr. Berzin: That’s probably correct, because the commander’s action would fall under the principle that if an action of body or speech is thought over beforehand, its karmic potential is strengthened. But here, whether the person who shoots also had time to deliberate before shooting makes no difference. The karmic potential from their action of killing someone will not be reinforced.  

Participant: But if the soldier really didn’t want to execute the prisoner, he would not be happy after he kills him.

Dr. Berzin: Well, we’re just talking about the karmic impulse that brought the soldier into the action of killing. Afterwards, of course, the person might have terrible regret and feel horrible that they had to do that.

Participant: The whole nation is also part of this. They support the army that’s fighting the war.

Dr. Berzin: That’s a very difficult question: Does the nation also share the negative karmic potential? For instance, if my government is waging a war that I’m not too happy about, and I pay taxes that pay for the weapons, am I building up negative karmic potentials from that? Does it make any difference if I deliberate beforehand and decide to pay my taxes specifically in order to pay for weapons? Even if I don’t think about what my tax money pays for – I might not even realize that this money goes for weapons – am I indirectly supporting the war and karmically responsible? In a sense, it’s the same issue as buying meat: one is indirectly supporting the killing of animals.

Participant: My point was that if I don’t pay my taxes, I get prosecuted.

Dr. Berzin: Right. But there is a difference. If we don’t pay the taxes, we get legally prosecuted. If we eat the meat, we don’t get legally prosecuted.

Participant: But I could demonstrate and vote for another party next time.

Dr. Berzin: Right. But you would still pay your taxes.

Participant: But when you pay your taxes, it’s not because you’ve deliberated partaking in the war. 

Dr. Berzin: Right. It’s a very indirect thing. We’re not actually killing anybody. This is something that we have discussed in terms of vegetarianism. One could say that when we buy or eat meat, we are indirectly providing the circumstances for animals to be killed, though it’s unclear what, if any, karmic consequences come from indirectly providing circumstances for destructive actions to take place. But there is a difference between, say, picking out a lobster to be boiled alive so that we can eat it – which is how they do it in some restaurants – and ordering a hamburger at McDonald’s. What I’m saying is that, within the karmic presentation, there is a difference between specifically ordering the animal to be killed for you and indirectly providing the circumstances. Paying your taxes that help to support a war is similar.

Participant: I think that any action you do to counter the consequences of your taxes going toward supporting a war could be helpful and worthwhile.

Dr. Berzin: Absolutely. If you remember, with the four opponent powers, one of the things we do is to take some opponent action to counterbalance the negative thing we’ve done. The example that we used was that if we killed people in a war, we could afterwards support orphans from that country, help them with their education, help to rebuild the country, or something like that. So, similarly, although we pay the taxes, we can go to protests, vote for a different party, and so on. These are counterbalancing types of things. That would certainly make a difference. But, still, there’s a big difference between indirectly supporting a negative action and directly providing the causes for it, as in the case of the commander directly ordering a soldier to kill a prisoner – which is like somebody ordering somebody to kill that chicken in order for me to have my chicken dinner.

OK. So, that was the first one: a karmic impulse for committing an action to be considered that has come from the order of others. The karmic potential from such an action is not reinforced. 

The next one is: 

[2] A karmic impulse for committing an action to be considered that has come from the signaling of others. 

The Sanskrit term I am translating here as “signal,” saṃjñapti, literally means “something that causes us to distinguish something” – namely, something that someone signals. The Tibetan translation, gsol-ba btab-pa, means a “request.” I think that the Sanskrit term connotes an implicit request as well as an explicit one, just as the verb “to signal” does in English – to communicate with a gesture, action, sound, etc.

This action also, as Jinaputra Yashomitra explains, is one that we don’t wish to do. For instance, somebody who has a terminal sickness or is mortally wounded in an accident or a war begs us to end their life. We don’t want to take their life – we harbor no hatred toward the person – but we are convinced that it would benefit them to put them out of their misery. If we take their life, that would actually be killing somebody, and the karmic impulse for the action would be enacted. But, again, it would not be reinforced, even though we probably thought it over before deciding to fulfill the person’s wish. Considering whether to end someone’s life and deciding to do it when they ask us to do so – while, at the same time, wishing we didn’t have to do it – doesn’t build up the same strengthened potential for a reinforced karmic impulse as thinking over and deciding to kill them on our own initiative.

This is a difficult situation, especially if somebody really begs us – even more so if it’s our parents. Remember, Vasubandhu spoke about that – that even if we do it in order to help them overcome suffering, taking the life of one’s parents is really, really heavy karmically. So, it’s a hard one. And it makes one think what happens if the person doesn’t explicitly ask us, as in the case of our dog that has a terminal illness and is suffering very much. In a sense, we could say that their condition signals us to put it out of its misery. But is that what our dog wants? Do we put it to sleep or not? For most people, that is a terrible decision to have to make. What do we do in that situation? Is the action stronger if we deliberate it? Asanga seems to indicate it makes no difference. I don’t know how we could not deliberate, especially if we really don’t want to do it. “I’m going to take the dog to the veterinarian so that he can give the dog a shot.” That, obviously, is deliberating it. And, as Gyaltsab Je stated, if we deliberate and decide to take our dog to the vet and it dies before we can do that, we build up the karmic potential for a reinforced karmic impulse to euthanize some being in the future.

The next one is: 

[3] A karmic impulse for committing an action to be considered that has come from not understanding the difference between good and bad behavior. When enacted, the karmic impulse is not reinforced.

Jinaputra Yashomitra adds that this behavior comes from “not being strongly entrenched in a root disturbing emotion.”

A good example is that of a two-year-old who takes another child’s toy. The toddler is too young to understand the difference between good and bad behavior. They are not driven by strong desire, anger, or naivety. The disturbing emotion of naivety would here refer to the unawareness that taking what has not been given results in suffering and unhappiness. The toddler is simply too young to be able to understand that – the underlying assumption with naivety being that they could have known that. I’m basing that on the fact that the Sanskrit term here is not avidyā, which is the term for unawareness, or ignorance, but rather avijñaya, which means “not understanding.” An adult going fishing or hunting for fun and relaxation or someone lying for fun would not be fitting examples in this case because the adult would be acting under the influence of strong naivety and would be capable of understanding. A more fitting example would be a mouse eating food in our cupboard. 

It’s hard to imagine what deliberating would mean here, especially if we think in terms of a mouse. If a being doesn’t have the intellectual means to understand things – whether that’s due to their rebirth state or to the level of their development within a rebirth state – and has no ability to differentiate good from bad, right from wrong, they wouldn’t have the cognitive skills needed to deliberate in a reasoned way, assuming they could deliberate at all. 

But Gyaltsab Je includes this type of karmic impulse as one of the three that, if deliberated beforehand but not enacted, would still be reinforced. So, although the two-year-old and the mouse are unable to deliberate in a reasoned way whether or not to snatch the toy or to steal the food on the basis of whether the action is right or wrong, they could still deliberate on the basis of other factors whether or not to do it and decide to do it. The two-year-old could deliberate whether they wanted to play with their own toy or the other child’s toy and decide that the other toy was more interesting. But their mother could come and take them away before they could grab that toy. The mouse could deliberate in the sense to see if it was safe to go get the food. It would check out whether the cat was around before deciding to climb into the cupboard. If it does decide to do that, but before it can actually start nibbling on the food, the cat comes all of a sudden, it will immediately flee.   

We will see with the next two types of karmic impulses, which are reinforced only if enacted, that the relevance of deliberation in causing a karmic impulse to be reinforced becomes even more questionable. In fact, the way in which these two types of karmic impulses are specified seems to preclude a situation in which we would be able to consider whether to commit the physical or verbal action for a long time beforehand. Instead, the reinforcement comes either from a deeply embedded disturbing emotion or from a strongly held reversed view. 

The fourth one is: 

[4] A karmic impulse for committing an action to be considered that has come from an entrenchment in a root of destructive actions. 

Jinaputra Yashomitra explains this as “the strong entrenchment of a mind that is possessed by disturbing emotions.” So, he uses even stronger terms – the word “possessed,” here, being the same as the one used for being possessed by a demon.

The example that’s given is someone who has taken monastic vows, including one of celibacy, which means refraining from engaging in any sexual activity whatsoever, including with one’s hand. They’re determined to keep this vow but, being overpowered by the strongly embedded habit of having acted on the basis of sexual desire in the past, they are unable to recall their spiritual masters, the Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha or their vows, and they just go ahead and have sex with themselves. 

Even though such an action is specified as one that is to be considered, here in this example we are determined to keep our vow, so transgressing the vow was not even something we considering doing beforehand. But at the time of transgressing it, we are too overwhelmed, too strongly controlled by our disturbing emotion of longing desire. We are, in a sense, out of control – “possessed,” as Jinaputra Yashomitra puts it. 

Then, the last one: 

[5] A karmic impulse for committing an action to be considered that has come from what is reversed. 

This refers to an action that has come from believing something that is the reverse of what is true or, as Jinaputra Yashomitra states it, one that comes from having the view that an inappropriate cause will give a desired result in the future. An example would be someone who engages in ordinary sex believing that it is a tantric method for attaining enlightenment. When a person has such a strongly held wrong view, they don’t even question whether having ordinary sex is an inappropriate Dharma method. Similar to the previous example, the person has such a deeply embedded habit of thinking in this deluded way that there is no room to question this view. They simply act out their mistaken belief. 

Differentiating between Intention and Deliberation

Participant: What is the difference between deliberation and intention? Isn’t a deliberate act the same as an intentional one?

Dr. Berzin: I think we have to be careful here not to get confused because of the English terms we have been using. We need to stick to the meaning of the original Sanskrit and Tibetan terms. Let’s drop using the word “deliberation,” since it implies the adjective “deliberate,” which can then be confused with “intentional.” Otherwise, we confuse “deliberated actions” with “deliberate actions.” Jinaputra Yashomitra specified “actions to be considered,” which can also be translated as “actions to be thought over.” As we’ve mentioned, it means thinking over whether or not to commit an action – in the case of our discussion, a destructive action of body or speech, but not necessarily a specific type of one – and deciding to do it. 

The three destructive actions of the mind are good examples of such mental actions, but there can be other examples as well of such lines of thought. They are all accompanied by the mental factors of investigation (rtog-pa), scrutiny (dpyod-pa) and discriminating awareness (shes-rab). When our friend the mouse decided it was all right to climb into the cupboard and steal some food, it certainly investigated and scrutinized whether the cat was nearby and discriminated that it was safe. It did not investigate and scrutinize the ethics of taking what was not given and discriminate between right and wrong, nevertheless its stealing was something it thought over beforehand.

Intention (‘dun-pa) is another mental factor. It is the mental factor of wishing for an intended object and to commit an intended action regarding that object. It is always specific because it is always accompanied by the mental factor of distinguishing (‘du-shes), which specifies the intended object and intended action. There can be different levels of specificity of the action, however – the wish may be to say something harsh in general or to say some specific harsh words. This distinguishing may or may not be accompanied by certainty. 

The mental action of thinking over whether or not to commit a certain action of body or speech and deciding to do it is accompanied in every moment of the line of thought with the intention to commit the action aimed at some specific person or thing. When the action of mind reaches its conclusion with the decision to commit the act, the intention is now accompanied by certainty. If we then go on to commit the action, then in English we would say the act is deliberate and intentional, but only if it reaches its intended outcome. 

No matter what we do, there is always an intention, but the outcome that results from our action is not always the intended result. When we drive our car, our intention is to drive and reach our destination. But we might hit someone by accident on the way. That was not the intended result of the action we intended to do. We might have thought over whether or not to drive to some specific place and decided to do that, so our driving the car was both deliberated and intentional. But we did not think over before getting into our car whether or not to hit someone along the way and decided to do that, so our hitting someone was neither deliberated nor intentional.

Let’s look at the permutations of an act being thought over and an act being intended, so as to avoid any confusion between the difference between these two and the difference between an act being deliberated and an act being intentional. 

• If an action is thought over, it is necessarily intended. For instance, a premeditated murder – we think it over and decide to do it. While making that decision, we are thinking about our intention to kill some specific person. If we actually murder them, our action was thought over and was the intended action. It was deliberate and intentional. 
• If we don’t actually manage to kill our intended victim but only wound them, or we shoot and miss and kill someone else by mistake, that was not our intended action. Did we deliberately and intentionally shoot to kill? Yes. Did we deliberately and intentionally just wound the intended victim or deliberately and intentionally kill the wrong person? No, that was not our intention. You see, it’s not so simple. 
• If an action is intended, it has not necessarily been thought over. When the soldier who was ordered to shoot the enemy combatant does so and kills them, they had the intention to shoot and kill the combatant, but they might not have first thought over whether to do it or not and decided to do it. Before shooting, the soldier would undoubtedly have had the thought to obey orders and that thought would have been accompanied by the intention to shoot and kill the combatant, but that is not the same as thinking it over. The soldier did not “deliberate.” Did the soldier deliberately and intentionally shoot and kill the combatant? Yes. But he didn’t deliberate his action in the sense of thinking it over and deciding beforehand. You see how tricky the word “deliberate” is as a verb and “deliberate” as an adjective. 
• There can be an action that is nether thought over nor intended, for instance accidentally hitting someone when driving our car. We didn’t think over doing it and decided to do it beforehand and we didn’t intend it. Hitting someone with our car was neither deliberated nor deliberate, nor was it intentional. 

Participant: What about insects eating my plants? I have a vow not to kill, but then I see these little insects eating my plants and so I remove them. I don’t deliberately kill them, and I don’t have the intention to kill them, but in removing them I inadvertently kill them. 

Dr. Berzin: This is a very good example. You have a vow not to kill. You see the insects eating your plants, and you don’t intend to kill them, but you have thought over whether or not to remove them and decided to do that. You didn’t think you would accidentally and unintentionally kill them, but you inadvertently do. 

Participant: I want to get rid of them.

Dr. Berzin: This could be a case of naivety. I mean, this happens to me, and I’m sure it happens to anybody who tries to follow the example of removing a fly or a mosquito from your room by trapping it in a cup that you put against the window where it landed, slipping a piece of paper under the cup and taking it outside, or catching it in your hand when it’s flying in midair. Well, sometimes it works, and sometimes, unintentionally, you kill it. That happens. So, I’m deliberating to save it and not intending to kill it. But I kill it anyway.

Participant: When you have lot of little fruit flies in your kitchen and you want to get rid of them, but you know in advance that no matter how you remove them, some will be killed. What is that?

Dr. Berzin: Right, if you sweep your hand through a bunch of them in the air and try to catch them, of course you will inevitably crush some of the ones that you manage to catch. You hope that won’t happen, so crushing some of them is not your intention. So, the outcome is mixed. You thought over and decided to try to save and evict all of them, and that was your intention, so you deliberately and intentionally swept your hand through the air to catch them as they were flying around your bowl of fruit. 

One of the results – saving and evicting some of them – was the intended outcome, but it was naive to think that you would succeed with all the fruit flies. Unintentionally and not deliberately, you crush and kill some of them that you catch – that was not the intended outcome. 

But what about if we were not naive and we realized that we would kill some of them, how do we analyze it then? Did we just not care about the consequences of our actions on the fruit flies, because we were only concerned about protecting our fruit? Were we just stupid in believing that how we tried to catch all of them was a failproof method? Hard to say.

Anyway, let’s go on.

OK. That was the simpler explanation of enacted and reinforced karmic impulses, although it’s actually not so simple. Asanga has a more complex presentation, which gets very interesting because it deals with dreams and stuff like that. It derives from his Foundation for Yogic Behavior (rNal-’byor spyod-pa’i sa, Skt. Yogācārabhūmi), often referred to as The Main Section of “Foundation (for Yogic Behavior)” (Sa-yi dngos-gzhi, Skt. Maulya Bhūmayah). Tsongkhapa cites this in his Lam-rim chen-mo, A Grand Presentation of the Graded Stages of the Path. Let me try to make it as simple as possible.

The Variables

In this presentation, Asanga first lists various types of karmic impulses:

• Enacted and non-enacted
• Reinforced and non-reinforced
• Thought over and not thought over
• Having certainty and not having such certainty. 

He then defines each of them: 

• An enacted karmic impulse is one that, whether thought about beforehand or even thought about afterwards, has caused an action of body or speech to arise. 

• A non-enacted karmic impulse it is one that, whether not thought about afterwards or not even thought about beforehand, has not caused an action of body or speech to arise. 
• A reinforced karmic impulse is one for an action of body or speech that is other than a list of ten (which we’ll go through in a minute).
• A non-reinforced karmic impulse is one for one of the actions of body or speech indicated in the previous list. 

• A karmic impulse for an action that is thought over is one in which the thinking occurs either (1) prior to committing the action, by thinking over and deciding to commit the action beforehand or (2) if not thought over and decided beforehand, reinforced after committing the action by thinking it over and not regretting the action and not applying opponent forces.  
• A karmic impulse for an action that does not entail thinking it over is one in which committing the action has not been thought over and decided beforehand, regardless of whether it is thought over and regretted afterwards.
• A karmic impulse having certainty is one having certainty of the lifespan in which the ripening of its karmic potential will begin to be experienced. It is one for an action of the body or speech that has been thought over and decided upon and has not been regretted afterwards.
• A karmic impulse having no certainty is one not having certainty of the lifespan in which the ripening of its karmic potential will begin to be experienced. It is one for an action of the body or speech that has not been thought over and decided upon beforehand, whether or not it is regretted afterwards. If, however, the action is regretted afterwards and the karmic potential is cleansed away, there is no certainty that the karmic impulse will ripen at all.

Obviously, this presentation is more complex and complicated than Asanga’s previous explanation that we looked at. Without going through all the permutations of these variables, let’s just look at the list of karmic impulses for actions of body or speech that are non-reinforced. I think the whole point of this is not the legal status of all of these, but to consider the many different types of actions that we do. Sometimes we intend to do it, sometimes we don’t intend to do it; sometimes we plan to do it, sometimes we don’t plan to do it. And in any of these cases, we might actually do it, or we might not do it. I think a lot of this hinges on the whole issue of guilt. What do we feel guilty about? What are we responsible for? What is heavier than other types of actions, and what do we focus on when doing purification? Perhaps that’s more significant.

Participant: Could we just try to have it a bit more general and easier? For example, if I actually committed a destructive action, but it was by accident, that’s bad enough. But if I had the intention to do it, that is worse. And if I not only have the intention, but I planned it, that’s the worst.

Dr. Berzin: OK. To generalize: if I do something destructive by accident or unintentionally, it’s bad enough, even if it’s in a dream or a violent video game and nobody actually gets killed. But if I intend to do it, it’s even stronger. And if, in addition, I plan it beforehand and it’s out of a habit, or it’s something that I do repeatedly, it’s even stronger still. That is certainly a generalization that we can come away with.

Participant: Easy to remember.

Dr. Berzin: Yeah. Easy to remember. Let me go through this list.

The Ten Non-Reinforced Karmic Impulses

Asanga lists of ten types of karmic impulses that are for actions of body or speech that are enacted but non-reinforced. The first two are for actions that are committed without having thought them over beforehand and decided to do them but that were thought over afterwards and not regretted. 

[1] A karmic impulse for an action committed in a dream (mi-lam-du byas-pa). 

An action committed in a dream, such as killing someone or saying harsh words to them, is not actually an action of the body or speech, because it is committed with mental consciousness and not with sensory consciousness. Technically, it is an action of the mind. But whether it is considered an action of the body or an action of the mind, the karmic impulse for it is non-reinforced. 

Asanga, however, is presenting this classification scheme in the context of his discussion of the ten destructive actions. There are only three destructive actions of the mind in this list of ten – thinking covetously, thinking with malice, and thinking distortedly with antagonism. Dreaming of killing someone is not considered in this list. If killing someone in a dream is considered an action of the body, the pathway of the karmic impulse for such an action of the body is not a complete pathway because the action does not reach its finale. The person killed in the dream does not actually die or have their feelings hurt by the harsh words, although we might dream that they do. 

In commenting on this passage, His Holiness the Dalai Lama has explained that it has been said that if, after waking up, we revive and remember the dream and strongly fixate on it, emotionally clinging to it, the pathway of the karmic impulse for the dream killing has become one for an action of the mind of thinking with malice. The implication is that the pathway for the karmic impulse for the action of the mind of thinking with malice reaches its finale here with thinking, after waking up, that killing the person was a good decision to have taken, even if it was only in the dream. 

[2] A karmic impulse for an action committed without understanding (mi-shes-par byas-pa). 

In explaining this, His Holiness the Dalai Lama has given the example of a small child taking another child’s toy and playing with it. If the small child does not think that the toy is now theirs and soon loses interest in it, the karmic pathway of the karmic impulse for taking what has not been given is incomplete. It has not reached its finale – considering what has been taken as one’s own. 

If, however, as His Holiness has explained, after taking the toy, the small child fixates on it and strongly clings to it as “mine,” they complete the pathway of the karmic impulse for the destructive action of taking what has not been given with the destructive action of mind of thinking covetously. In this case, the pathway of the karmic impulse of the toddler does not become the pathway of a karmic action of the mind of thinking covetously. It is the pathway of the karmic impulse for an action of the body since that action was carried out with sensory consciousness, not mental consciousness. Dream killing, on the other hand, is done with mental consciousness, not sensory consciousness, so it is an action of the mind.

Let’s go through the rest of the list more briefly. The next six are karmic impulses for actions that are preceded by thinking over and deciding to commit an action of body or speech that is not the one that we actually commit.

[3] A karmic impulse for an action committed not in accord with what we thought to do (bsams-bzhin min-par byas-pa). 

For example, we think over and decide to shoot a thief in order to stop him, not kill him; however, our shooting causes the thief to die from the wound.

[4] A karmic impulse for an action committed without intensity and not repeatedly (drag-po min-la rgyun-chags-min-par byas-pa).

“Without intensity” means without a strong disturbing emotion accompanying the action. An example would be going fishing once or twice just to have fun and relax – we have no malice toward fish. But because we don’t really enjoy ourselves, we decide never to do it again.

[5] A karmic impulse for an action committed mistakenly (nor-bar byas-pa). 

An example would be bombing and killing innocent civilians when we drop bombs on what we think is an enemy encampment. We had thought over and decided to kill enemy soldiers, but our action killed the civilians by mistake.

[6] A karmic impulse for an action committed out of forgetfulness (brjed-pas byas-pa). 

For example, we’ve taken a vow not to kill, but when a mosquito starts buzzing around our head, we forget about our vow – which means losing mindfulness of it – and we smack and kill it when it lands on our hand. Here, we had thought over and decided to keep our vow not to kill, but in the moment, we forget our vow and kill the mosquito anyway. This happens quite often, doesn’t it? We take vows, but sometimes we just forget.

[7] A karmic impulse for an action committed while not wanting to commit it (mi-’dod-bzhin-du byas-pa).

For example, our old dog has cancer and is dying. We think it over and decide to let it die a natural death. But then seeing how much it is suffering, we change our minds and decide to put it to sleep, even though we don’t want to do it. Asanga doesn’t limit this only to cases where someone forces or begs us to commit some action against our will. Also, I don’t think it’s speaking simply about making the decision at the end to have our dog put to sleep but actually taking the life of our dog ourselves. 

[8] A karmic impulse for an action committed through some naturally unspecified action (rang-bzhin-gyis lung-ma-bstan-pa).

For example, walking is a naturally unspecified action – one specified by Buddha to be neither constructive nor destructive – and in doing so, we inadvertently step on and kill small insects such as ants. We don’t think over and decide to step on ants when we go for a walk, but even without knowing, we kill some anyway.

In the last two cases, the karmic actions, regardless of whether they are thought over and decided upon beforehand, are followed afterwards by thinking about them with either regret or an opponent force, so that their negative karmic potentials get cleansed away. 

[9] A karmic impulse for an action whose karmic potentials are later cleansed away by regret (‘gyod-pas bsal-ba). 

If we commit a destructive action of body or speech and later regret it, the karmic impulse for committing that action was not reinforced.

[10] A karmic impulse for an action whose karmic potentials are later cleansed away by opponent forces (gnyen-pos bsal-ba).

The same is the case with applying opponent forces such as Vajrasattva meditation or voidness meditation. 

These, then, are the ten types of karmic impulses that are non-reinforced.

The Four Permutations Concerning Enacted and Reinforced Karmic Impulses

In Compendia of Ascertainments from “Foundation for Yogic Behavior” (rNal-’byor spyod-pa’i sa rnam-par gtan-la dbab-pa bsdu-ba, Skt. Viniścayasaṃgrahaṇī), also quoted by Tsongkhapa in A Grand Presentation of the Graded Stages of the Path, Asanga has a third presentation. Here, he presents four possible permutations of karmic impulses being enacted, not enacted, reinforced, and non-reinforced, but without defining these terms nor discussing which have certainty of the lifetime in which they will begin to ripen and which do not have such certainty. It is important, then, when studying these permutations, not to interpolate the definitions of enacted and reinforced karmic impulses from Asanga’s presentations in the previous two texts. 

Here, Asanga, illustrates these permutations in terms of the karmic impulses for committing the action of taking the life of another being and states that a similar analysis applies to the the karmic impulses for the rest of the actions of the body and speech, from taking what has not been given up to and including chattering meaninglessly.

Karmic Impulses That Are Enacted but Not Reinforced

First, there are karmic impulses that are enacted but not reinforced. These include the karmic impulses for taking the life of some being that are:

1. Committed by a young child unknowingly (byis-pa mi-mkhas-pas byas-pa), such as a young child hugging a baby rabbit so hard that, not knowing that doing so will kill it, they take its life, 
2. Committed in a dream (rmi-lam-na byas-pa), such as murdering someone in a dream,  
3. Committed not deliberately (ched-du ma-byas-pa), such as killing our dinner guest by serving them chicken, which causes them to choke to death on a bone, 
4. Committed by being forced by someone else to commit it against our will (mi-’dod bzhin-du gzhan-gyis nan-gyis byed-du bcug-pa), such as being forced by the authorities to slaughter our chickens during an outbreak of bird flu.
5. Committed only once and then afterwards strongly devasting the strength of its karmic aftermath with a steady stream of thoughts of regret and thoughts about the drawbacks of what we did, and then being very careful not to repeat the action, having taken on a vow to refrain from committing it
6. Committed, but before its karmic aftermath has begun to ripen, devastating the strength of its karmic aftermath by using only mundane methods to part ourselves from longing desire, such as the meditation on the filth of the bodily fluids
7. Committed, but before its karmic aftermath has begun to ripen, devastating completely its karmic aftermath with a supramundane pathway of mind to rid ourselves of longing desire completely, such as meditation on voidness.

Karmic Impulses That Are Reinforced but Not Enacted

On the other hand, there can be karmic actions for which the karmic impulses are not enacted but are reinforced. The example Asanga gives is thoroughly investigating and scrutinizing for a long time whether to take the life of some being but realizing that if enacted, there would be the reinforced buildup of the negative karmic potential from the destructive action of taking a life, not enacting that taking of a life. Bear in mind that this example is the karmic impulse for the action of the body of taking a life, not the karmic impulse for the action of the mind to think with malice whether to take that life. 

Karmic Impulses That Are Both Enacted and Reinforced

Karmic impulses that are both enacted and reinforced include all those for taking a life that are actually implemented and that are not included in the first two permutations – namely karmic impulses that are enacted but not reinforced and karmic impulses that are reinforced but not enacted. An example is deliberately taking the life of someone under our own initiative after investigating and scrutinizing for a long time whether to do it and, afterwards, not regretting what we have done.

Karmic Impulses That Are Neither Enacted Nor Reinforced

Karmic impulses that are neither enacted nor reinforced include all those for taking a life that are not included in the previous three. For example, a spur-of-the-moment karmic impulse to smash and kill a mosquito that has landed on our hand but that flies away before we can smash and kill it. 

So, what can we summarize from this? I’m sorry if this has been a confusing class with far too much information, but the texts on karma in the Kangyur and those written by the great Indian masters and that we find in all the Tibetan commentaries as well, go into extreme detail about all the different possibilities, and each text has a different presentation. 

We can, I suppose, ask the question, “Why do we need all these variables?” As I said, I think that it has to do with examining what we do and what we need to purify. What is, I think, important is to realize that even thinking about committing a destructive action, whether we are forced to do it or whatever and whether we commit the action or not, is still a destructive action. I think that’s the main point of all of this. There might be various levels of heaviness of the results that we experience and differences in the time frame in which we begin to experience them, but the only way for there to be no karmic consequences at all is to purify our minds of all of this stuff. 

So, there’s no way that we can commit an action that doesn’t count from a karmic point of view. Whether it’s playing violent video games, really intending to kill that space invader or alien, or doing something horrible in a dreams – all these sort of things build up and reinforce negative habits. Those actions that we commit or that we think about committing build up karmic potentials and tendencies that cause us to perpetuate that type of behavior and maybe even to commit karmically heavier actions in the future. 

Does Watching Violent Movies Build Up a Propensity to Act Violently?

What about this whole issue of kids watching so many violent movies? Does it influence them to actually commit these type of violent actions? And does it influence them in the sense that they actually build up a karmic tendency or, in ordinary language, a propensity to commit them? What do you think?

Participant: I think so.

Dr. Berzin: Why? There’s a difference between saying “I think so,” just because you think so and saying it because you have a reason. So, can you give a karmic reason? 

Participant: I think that seeing people being killed many, many times would lower your threshold for killing. It’s like in a war. What they explain about the soldiers is that the first time that they see the person that they shot dying, they feel terrible. They might not even be able shoot the first time out. Then it becomes easier. So, even just watching movies of killing, I think, builds up a habit in the mind.

Dr. Berzin: So, they become a bit immune to the suffering they cause. But I’m just wondering, would somebody watching lots of people being killed again and again in a movie or in a war build up the propensity to kill?

Participant: I don’t think they would necessarily build up the propensity to kill. I think playing a video war game, for example, is much more active and would be more likely than watching violent movies to build up a propensity for violent behavior – at least, a liking for violent behavior.

Dr. Berzin: Right. In that case, you’re actually shooting. But why wouldn’t watching a violent movie build up the propensity to kill? In any case, I think that what happens is that you don’t take the reality of cause and effect very seriously.

Participant: I think also it depends on the age of the person who’s watching. 

Dr. Berzin: Teenagers are very impressionable. Adults who are not very stable psychologically could also be very impressionable.

Participant: I think it’s more dangerous for a teenager.

Dr. Berzin: Right. It’s more dangerous for a teenager or a child who hasn’t built up some strong sense of ethics.

Participant: I think it becomes the thing that you do: you fight, rather than discuss. Violence becomes a way of dealing with conflict.

Dr. Berzin: This is one of the causes for the disturbing emotions to arise: influence from external sources. So, here, it’s not that watching violent movies incites you to violence; it’s that it causes you to think that violence is the normal way of dealing with things. So, killing or carrying a gun and so on becomes the normal way of dealing with things. In that sense, then, watching violent movies could act as a negative influence. I think of pornography and how watching it would increase your sexual desire.

Is Watching Violent Films a Destructive Act or an Unspecified One?

Then the question is, is watching violent films a destructive action or an unspecified one?

Participant: Watching violent movies could maybe cause us to talk and think more about them. That could actually help us to become more aware of the circumstances involved and maybe even help us to avoid getting into them.

Dr. Berzin: So, you’re arguing for watching violent movies being an unspecified action, which means that it would not necessarily build up a destructive tendency or propensity. We could, for example, watch one after class and have it be a topic for analysis. That could even cause us to turn away from destructive behavior. So, it’s unspecified in the sense that it could go either way; it could become a destructive or a constructive action, depending on the motivation. But if the distinction between what is destructive, constructive and unspecified becomes amorphous, almost anything could become destructive.

Participant: I remember Oliver Petersen, the tutor for the Buddhist study program in Hamburg. He has quite a background in psychology. He talked about some experiments with people that involved mirror neurons. It was  quite clear from these experiments that even when people are not attracted to or don’t want to be influenced by violent movies or whatever they watch, they are nonetheless influenced and the threshold for being negatively influenced is lowered.

Dr. Berzin: I could imagine that when you watch a violent movie, there’s a very good chance that you will dream about something violent, whether it be doing something violent or being the victim of something violent.

What about all these violent cartoons? Most cartoons, at least in the West, are extremely violent. It’s very interesting: I visit Russia quite often, and the children’s cartoons there are not violent. They’re mostly fairy tales – but not like the Grimm Brother fairy tales of witches baking you into cookies, eating little children, and stuff like that. It’s quite interesting. Tom and Jerry, Road Runner or any of these sorts of American cartoons are unbelievably violent. Do they have a negative influence on children? And why are they shown to children? One argument is that it teaches them that the world is not such a nice place and that they have to defend themselves and so on. 

But it’s very interesting. What is destructive? 

Participant: I think it also depends on the motivation of the person who does the film. It can also be to show how destructive violence is or how constructive something else is.

Dr. Berzin: The motivation could be to teach us a lesson – that if we act destructively, we get caught and so on. But what about these violent cartoons? In the Tom and Jerry cartoons, the mouse gets absolutely crushed by an anvil or something like that. Then, in the next second, the mouse is perfectly OK. So, it tends to teach us that we can do something terribly violent to somebody else and, in the next minute, they’ll be OK. So, it really teaches a very wrong view of cause and effect. 

This then becomes an issue: do we try to prevent our small child from watching these kinds of cartoons? Or is there no way to prevent the child because they’re going to see them at some point anyway? And kids like these cartoons, which is especially weird.

Anyway, these are the types of things that we start to wonder as we get further and further into the details of this karmic discussion. How much can we really avoid destructive influences? And is just being a witness of destructive behavior – which inevitably happens – necessarily going to influence us in a negative way? I think if we’re very weak, we could be influenced. If we’re quite strong, we could become more convinced to give up that type of behavior. Anyway, these are some of the issues with karma.