LTF 11: Karmic Pathways, the 4 Factors of Completion

The good qualities of generosity are basically that it overcomes miserliness, greediness, and attachment. Shantideva, although he didn’t make a separate chapter concerning generosity, pointed out that, while we have the ability to give things away, it’s much better to do so now rather than wait until the Lord of Death snatches them away. As many of us might know from experience, when people die, most of their precious things are instantly considered as garbage by the people who are left behind and are thrown away, including, as Shantideva would say, the person’s body. Nobody wants to keep it around. This is actually quite a good piece of advice – to give things away. Even if we think just in terms of inheritance tax, it’s better to give it now than to wait. 

Generosity is the cause for wealth and prosperity. The point is that wealth is one of the eight special qualities that makes a precious human life even more useful because, with wealth, we can use our resources to help others – support poor people and, especially, to support Dharma purposes. Also, when we are mindful of the good qualities of generosity, it helps us to practice it properly. 

There’s a whole long description of how to practice generosity properly. One of the factors is to give good quality things, things that are really excellent. Sometimes people give things away that they no longer like, don’t want, or don’t use, and that’s not really a proper type of gift. 

It’s also important to give joyfully (not begrudgingly), to give respectfully to the other (not just throw something to a beggar), and without hope for anything in return or for something karmic to ripen. Togmey Zangpo says this in the Thirty-seven Bodhisattva Practices. So, in giving, it’s best to give anonymously. That’s always considered the best. If we give and then expect a “thank you” or expect, as many people do, to be loved, appreciated, to feel useful or needed – this type of thing  is really asking for something in return. To give for something karmic to ripen is, again – what shall we say? – is doing something like a business transaction: we make an investment, and then we hope to collect in our next life. That, also, is an improper way of giving. 

Also, I think it’s important to give what the other person needs – not necessarily what we like but what the other person likes. Very often we don’t really think about what the other person would actually like. We always just project something that we might like, whether it’s food, clothing, whatever it might be. This is also not appropriate. 

Of course, there are certain things that one doesn’t give to others, like weapons and things that can be used to cause a lot of harm, alcohol to an alcoholic, or money to a junkie who is just going to go out and buy heroin with it – these sorts of things. One has to be quite careful. Actually, it’s very difficult to be generous properly, I must say, especially in India when we’re surrounded by a whole hoard of beggar children. No matter what we give them, they want more and more. And if we don’t have enough small coins to give to each of the beggar children, we’re in big trouble. So, what to do? How to handle that? One has to think beforehand.

Usually, what the Tibetans do is to exchange some paper bills for a big bag of coins so that they can give to all the beggars equally. I lived in India for so long, and one is accosted by beggars constantly. So, the policy that I followed, which maybe wasn’t the wisest policy, was that if I had change in my pocket, I would give away the change. When I ran out of change, I said, “Sorry.” But even when we say we’re sorry, again, it’s important to do that respectfully – not to swat them away, chase them away like they’re mosquitoes. But again, that can be difficult in India. Here in the West, people don’t have that type of experience, but those of us who have been in India know that it’s quite difficult sometimes. We have to be very firm with the beggars. But again, we try to do that without anger. 

Also, when we give a present to somebody – I forget whether Buddha or one of the Indian masters said this – the question is: who does it belong to once it’s been given away? Obviously, once we’ve given it away, it no longer belongs to us; it belongs to the person that we’ve given it to. The point here is that if we give money to somebody, for example, they can then use it for whatever they want. It’s theirs already, so we shouldn’t be insistent in wanting to control and so on, making sure that they use it for what we want them to use it for. If we want them to use it for buying a certain thing, it’s much better to buy that thing for them. 

We had this experience in India. Once there were some people who wanted to give money to a monastery in Dharamsala in order to improve the quality of the food there. First, they gave the money to the monastery, and the monastery, of course, used the money to buy bricks to build a temple. This didn’t please the donors at all. The only solution that we could find was to organize people to actually buy the food and deliver it to the monastery. Then the monks actually had to eat this food and improve their diets. This is an important point. Also, again, we give what others like. In this case the donors said, “Let’s buy soybeans” – all this healthy type of food that the Tibetans would never have eaten. So, one has to give properly. If we give a big sac of soybeans to Tibetans, they’ll sell it back in the market. Actually, in the end, we just bought meat for them so that they would make mo-mos. They couldn’t give meat back. 

Also, in terms of giving respectfully, the custom is that one should give with both hands, holding the gift respectfully and not just tossing it to the person with one hand. Once I was in Bodhgaya translating for His Holiness the Dalai Lama underneath the bodhi tree. His Holiness had a microphone, and I had a microphone, but my microphone failed. His Holiness told me to go sit with the chant leader and to share his microphone. So, I climbed over the major Rinpoches who were sitting in front and ended up sitting nearly in the lap of the chant leader. Of course, his microphone also failed! So, His Holiness called me up to the throne, and I sat at the bottom, on the ground beside the throne. His Holiness would use the microphone and then he would pass it to me. By this point, I was so unbelievably nervous and freaked out at the whole situation that I would hand His Holiness the microphone with one hand when it was going back and forth. Afterwards, Serkong Rinpoche nearly hit me for doing that. He said, “What were you doing? You were like a monkey handing His Holiness a banana.” So, we have to give things respectfully, especially when everybody is looking at you and watching!

Participant: Actually, that was funny.

Dr Berzin: Serkong Rinpoche could be quite wrathful, quite strong. 

Then, the good qualities of ethical discipline – basically, it’s that it’s the foundation of all the other good qualities and attainments. For whatever we want to achieve in terms of the Dharma, we need ethical self-discipline. Again, when we are mindful of ethical self-discipline, we practice it without any worldly intent, as Togmey Zangpo says in the Thirty-seven Bodhisattva Practices. In other words, we’re not talking here about the discipline to be a good athlete, to play a musical instrument well or something like that. We’re talking about the discipline to attain some spiritual goal.

Next come the good qualities of the gods. This is referring to the gods in the god realms – the celestial beings. The gods illustrate that even worldly happiness comes from practicing generosity and ethical discipline. So, it helps us to be mindful of the causes for such a rebirth, although that’s not our ultimate aim. 

[5] Always entrust yourself, with body, speech, and mind to the ten pathways of constructive karma; turn away from intoxicants, and likewise delight as well in livelihoods that are constructive.

The various outlines here are quite interesting. The way that Rendawa and Kangyur Rinpoche divide this is completely different from Geshe Losang Jinba’s outline, which is the Gelug outline. According to Geshe Losang Jinba’s outline, the verses four and five deal with the initial scope of spiritual motivation. Verse four emphasizes refuge, and verse five emphasizes karma. Those pertain to the initial scope of motivation. So, according to this outline, generosity and ethical discipline are the causes for being born in a higher realm. The next two verses, six and seven, are for the intermediate scope. Then, the eighth verse is about the six far-reaching attitudes, which Geshe Losang Jinba says is for the advanced scope of motivation. 

On the other hand, the Nyingma commentary on this by Kangyur Rinpoche says that the next three verses – verses five, six, and seven – are just elaborations on the topics of generosity, ethical self-discipline, and the gods that one is to be continually mindful of. This also makes sense. Kangyur Rinpoche says that the verse five that we have here now on karma is dealing with the good qualities of the gods because one needs to follow this advice in order to get rebirth in such a realm. Then, the next verse, six, is on generosity and that the verse after that, verse seven, is on ethical discipline. So, Nagarjuna is obviously emphasizing ethical discipline. Then, when it goes into the six far-reaching attitudes, it’s a completely different section of the outline. 

I think this illustrates quite well how arbitrary these outlines are. One could, with an intelligent mind, find many different ways of putting these verses in order. Whether or not Nagarjuna intended all of these different levels of interpretation – who knows? 

Now, I have to ask you a question. We have here now an opportunity to look at the ten destructive karmic actions. Here, Nagarjuna is speaking about the ten constructive actions, but we can’t speak about those outside of the context of the destructive ones. If you like, we can go into a lengthy discussion about karma and these various actions; it’s up to you. We spent an awful lot of time on the qualities of the Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha, so it really is your choice whether you want to do something in detail about karma here. This is not so much about lists like the qualities of the Buddha were. We can also do not such great detail, just medium detail. 

What I had prepared, is, first of all, a discussion of the ten destructive actions and the various factors that make them complete or incomplete so that you could get a clearer idea of what they are actually about – the basis and so on, then the factors that affect the strength of the ripening, and then whether or not an action is intentional or unintentional and that sort of stuff. Well, actually, there is quite a bit of detail concerning all of that in the analysis of karma. 

[Discussion and vote to do the medium length discussion on karma.]

Nagarjuna says here, “Entrust yourselves with body, speech, and mind to ten pathways of constructive karma.” When we speak about constructive karma in Buddhism – pathways of karma – we are talking about refraining from committing the destructive types of actions. And that has to be a very conscious refraining. In other words, when it comes to not killing, for example, if we don’t go out hunting because we never went out hunting – we thought that was not a nice thing to do, or it just never entered our heads, or we never had the opportunity – that’s not this type of constructive behavior. What it’s talking about here is that, when a mosquito is buzzing around our head or has landed on our arm and is about to take a drink and we want to hit and kill it, we remember the disadvantages of taking the life of another being and refrain from killing it. This is the constructive action. It’s to consciously refrain with a strong motivation from acting destructively. Simply not doing it has no motivation behind it, so it's very weak karmically. This is an important thing to remember because then we can start to train ourselves to refrain from acting in destructive ways. That is really what brings karmic improvement. 

Sometimes people say, “This is just ordinary constructive behavior – to restrain ourselves. Isn’t there a special one?” I’ve heard some reference to that. However, if we think about it, this qualm doesn’t make much sense in terms of the third destructive action, indulging in inappropriate sexual behavior. It doesn’t seem to be terribly in the flavor of Buddhism to say, “Well, if you indulge in proper sexual behavior – that’s constructive and will bring about higher rebirths and so on.” That’s why I have a doubt here that we could simply say that the opposite of a destructive action would be the constructive action, the special constructive action. 

Saving somebody’s life – that comes in the category of giving protection from fear. And not stealing but giving to somebody else – well, that comes in the category of generosity. Speaking truthfully is listed in the four ways of gathering disciples – so, no idle chatter and so on. All of the things that we would imagine to be in the list of constructive behavior are actually taken care of in other aspects of the Dharma. So, I think that we would have to say that the main emphasis in constructive behavior is always refraining from being destructive. 

Also, we have the three types of ethical discipline, if you’ll recall. There’s the ethical discipline to refrain from destructive behavior; there’s the ethical discipline to engage in constructive activities, which refers to Dharma practice – meditation, study, and so on; and there is the ethical discipline to help others. So, there are other classification schemes in which these types of constructive behaviors come. 

Participant: What about developing love?

Dr Berzin: Developing love and giving love – that is a constructive activity. But we are talking about the ten constructive actions and the ten destructive actions. This is what I’m referring to – the type of actions that would be thrown onto that list. 

Participant: I heard explanations about how to understand constructive activities – that you expand it to include not just not killing but actually developing love.

Dr Berzin: I’ve also heard a version like this, although it said that instead of not killing, it was taking care of sick people, helping to extend other’s lives – so, the exact opposite. But what was said about inappropriate sexual behavior? 

Participant: For inappropriate sexual behavior, it was developing a “stainless simplicity,” a simple lifestyle.

Dr Berzin: Developing a simple lifestyle?

Participant: Genügsamkeit.

Dr Berzin: That would be contentment. 

Participant: Yes, contentment. Which would make sense, don’t you think? Being content with not actually having to have sex.

Dr Berzin: Right. So, one would be content with not having sex or with just having sex with one’s partner at appropriate times, places, etc. Yes, there are these explanations. Where did this explanation come from? 

Participant: This one, as far as I can recall, is from Sangharakshita, the founder if the Friends of the Western Buddhist Order.

Dr Berzin: This is from Sangharakshita? Do you know if he based it on a text or if this was his own interpretation? 

Participant: I don’t think it’s based on a text, but if it is at all, it must be Nyingma.

Dr Berzin: It must be Nyingma? Maybe. I heard a list of this from Karma Kagyu, actually – that there were the regular constructive behaviors and then the special constructive behaviors. But I haven’t seen that in a text. 

Participant: Isn’t it possible to make a list of ten virtuous actions without it being a negation of the ten non-virtuous actions?

Dr Berzin: I suppose. I’m just asking if there’s a textual source for that. If there is, fine. If we just make it up, then, of course, there are lots and lots of constructive behaviors. I’m just asking whether or not they fall into the category of the ten. In fact, there are many more destructive types of behavior than just these ten. Many, many more. 

In sensitivity training, I expanded very much on the ten destructive types of behavior. I think all of that is certainly necessary in terms of applying Dharma to daily life – to think what is constructive, what is destructive. However, there’s a specific discussion of ten types of destructive behaviors, which are the most significant ones. Buddha repeated the list over and over again. And as Dharmakirti said, if there is something that appears repeatedly in so many texts by the Buddha, then we can decide that this is what he really meant. It wasn’t just for a special occasion or for a special person. 

In terms of the lam-rim and the initial level of motivation, the goal is to avoid being reborn in a worse rebirth state and to be reborn in a better rebirth state. To avoid being reborn in a worse rebirth state, we have to refrain from acting destructively. So, the emphasis there is on that. Now, to be reborn in a better rebirth state – is it simply a result of refraining, or do we also have to do something positive? That’s really the question. I think we’d have to say that we have to do something positive, given what was stated here in our text and the commentary – that rebirth in a celestial realm comes from generosity and also some type of ethical discipline. So, if we accept the second version of what you were saying – that constructive behavior is also actually engaging in doing something positive, not just refraining from not doing something negative – we’d have to say both are necessary. This was the explanation that I heard – that there is the ordinary level and the special level of the ten. 

Participant: What about developing qualities? If you just refrain from negative actions, it doesn’t mean that you’ll develop friendliness or something.

Dr Berzin: Right. Just refraining from destructive actions doesn’t necessarily mean that we would acquire friendliness. And conversely, if we acquire friendliness – that doesn’t necessarily mean that we would stop killing mosquitoes. 

Participant: Yeah, that’s true. 

Dr Berzin: Well, if we develop true friendliness, is it more unlikely that we would want to kill? I think the question here is the order. I think that, first, we have to stop killing – which, certainly, is the order that’s always given in the Dharma – and then we develop friendliness. 

Participant: First, you would need to develop friendliness toward the creature – let’s say, the mosquito or the cockroach – and think “Oh, how nice.” Then you would stop killing them. If you haven’t developed that friendliness first, you’d kill them. 

Dr Berzin: Although I think that, theoretically, what you say is true – first to think, “Oh, how nice this pussy cat or puppy dog” – it would be very difficult for most people to develop friendliness for a mosquito. 

Participant: But spiders… I think if you think, “Oh, this is such a nice spider…”

Dr Berzin: Yes, but if your natural tendency was to kill it, you wouldn’t suddenly say, “Oh, how nice,” before you stopped killing it. You’d have to stop killing it in order to look at it and say “how nice.” 

Participant: With children, some like to torture little creatures and some not.

Dr Berzin: Yes, but that’s beside the point. That’s from karmic imprints of the past – whether they like or dislike doing that. 

I think one could make an argument both ways. However, if we look in terms of the Dharma presentation, it’s always that, first, we refrain from acting negatively. It’s analogous to tonglen (gtong-len) practice, where first we take away the suffering, and then we give happiness. So, first, we would take away the suffering of stepping on the cockroach or smacking the mosquito before we could give it love or friendliness. 

We are speaking about when one has the habit of killing. As I said, if we never had the habit to kill the creature in the first place, then not killing it isn’t actually refraining from killing. That’s not such a constructive action. It’s when we want to kill it and then we don’t.  

Participant: It’s not a constructive action but it is a constructive habit.

Dr Berzin: Of not killing? That’s a constructive natural tendency.

Participant: A vow in your mind.

Dr Berzin: Right. That undoubtedly comes from some previous life. 

OK. So, we look at the ten destructive actions. 

The Ten Destructive Actions

We have three physical destructive actions: 

• Taking a life, which means killing 
• Taking what was not given – that’s stealing
• Indulging in distorted sexual behavior – “distorted” is the literal term. It is the same adjective as “distorted” attitude 

The four destructive verbal acts are: 

• Expressing what is untrue – that’s lying 
• Speaking divisively 
• Using harsh and cruel language 
• Speaking idle words

The three destructive mental acts are (it’s important with these three to realize that they are ways of thinking, actions of the mind with which we think over and decide to commit or refrain from committing one of the destructive actions of body or speech ): 

• Covetous thinking 
• Thinking with malice – thinking and plotting how to hurt someone or how to get back at them
• Thinking with a distorted, antagonistic attitude – thinking with a distorted outlook and wishing, with hostility, to deny the value of anything positive 

Participant: “Covetous”?

Dr Berzin: “Covetous” means that we want something that somebody else has. It’s sort of a combination of jealousy and greed. Anybody have any suggestion? What’s the standard way that it’s translated?  

Participant: Just like “craving” or something like that.

Dr Berzin: Well, just use the standard term. We’ll explain it.

Now, there are various criteria for determining if a certain action is, first of all, a karmic one or if it’s just an action. But mind you, when we speak of a karmic action, we’re talking about a pathway of karma (las-lam). More precisely, we’re talking about a pathway of a karmic impulse, which spans the entire course of an action from its initiation through to its end. We’ll get more into the specifics as we go along. One of the criteria determining whether a karmic action is destructive, constructive or unspecified (“unspecified,” meaning that Buddha did not specify whether it was destructive or constructive) is the contemporaneous motivation. In other words, is the motivating emotion and motivating intention with which we enter into the actual action constructive, destructive or unspecified? 

Participant: It’s one of these?

Dr Berzin: This is what I am saying: It becomes very complex. Very complex. And even when it’s clear that a certain action is a karmic one, we have to determine which karmic action has been committed, whether it was a complete karmic action, and whether it’s one of the ten destructive ones because, obviously, a fundamental principal of Buddhist ethics is to at least refrain from committing any of the ten destructive actions. Obviously, we want to refrain from more than just the ten, but Buddha pointed out to at least restrain from these ten. 

Buddhist Ethics and Cultural Variations

Dr Berzin: Let me just add something. I wrote a manuscript on this, quite a long manuscript which I never finished. But the big question is: what points in Buddhist ethics are open to cultural variation? Which ones have been open to variation over history and which ones are open to further variation? That requires a very deep analysis. However, since Buddha repeated so many times these ten, I don’t think that they are open to cultural variation. He really meant it – that we should at least refrain from committing these ten. 

Participant: But, still, they need interpretation, as in “distorted sexual behavior.”

Dr Berzin: Well, that was the main topic of my book – to see how that has been understood over time and how it developed historically. It’s an incredibly difficult topic, as is the issue of intoxicants, for that matter. However, with intoxicants, Buddha was quite clear. Despite what people interpreted later, Buddha said, “Not even a drop that would fit at the end of the tip of a blade of grass.”

Participant: Of alcohol?

Dr Berzin: Of alcohol. 

Participant: But, then, you can say, culturally, that alcohol wasn’t acceptable. I don’t know how it is in India now, but then opium was very common…

Dr Berzin:  Right. So, this also needs to be interpreted – whether that prohibition includes drugs and so on. If it includes drugs, then one gets into a big discussion of recreational drugs, addictive drugs, medical drugs that people are addicted to, tranquilizers, etc. The topic is very, very complex. It’s a very difficult topic. 

Participant: I think that you can’t say that it’s without a context, without a context of the times, of the culture.

Dr Berzin: Well, this is what I’m saying – that one can’t make the generalization that everything depends on the culture. One has to look, as I did in this manuscript, very clearly at all of the definitions and discussions of what makes something destructive and what kind of karmic results follow from which kinds of actions and why – the why of everything. One has to analyze; one can’t just make a statement like that without analysis and reason. As His Holiness says, to just give the reason, “Well, I don’t think so,” or “I think it should be like that,” is not sufficient. This is the way that Tsongkhapa reinterpreted almost everything in Buddhism that came before him. He did it, basically, by using reason based on the text. If one can do that, then the conclusion is very convincing. It’s almost like being a lawyer – that one has to argue the case. 

Participant: Yeah, but lawyers can argue anything…

Dr Berzin: Lawyers, as we know, can argue anything. Similarly, using logic, one could prove almost anything. So, it depends on whether the person has a pre-decided conclusion that they want to prove or whether they are open to whatever conclusion comes out of the investigation. That’s difficult. Believe me, I spent a long time researching this issue. 

[To participant] Also, here are three stages of a karmic action, and at each stage, we could have a different motivating emotion. We could have a great deal of compassion in the beginning – “I want to kill these bed bugs because they are eating my babies.” So, we could have so much compassion at that time. But when we’re actually killing them, we could hate those bed bugs. Then afterwards, we could feel so badly and feel very sorry – so, that’s another emotion. But what’s important is the contemporaneous motivation – when we actually do the action.

Now, in terms of the pathway of karma, there are two main systems or presentations of karma within the the Indian Buddhist tenet systems. 

• One system derives from Asanga’s Anthology of Special Topics of Knowledge (Chos mngon-pa kun-las btus-pa, Skt. Abhidharmasamuccaya), which is presented in the context of the assertions of the Chittamatra tenet system. Sautrantika, and Yogachara-Svatantrika schools, follow this presentation in general. In this presentation, karma is exclusively a mental urge (sems-pa), or impulse, a mental factor. 
• The other system derives from Vasubandhu’s Treasure House of Special Topics of Knowledge (Chos-mngon-pa’i mdzod, Skt. Abhidharmakośa). This presentation explains karma in the context of the assertions of the Vaibhashika tenet system and is accepted, in general, by the Gelug version of Prasangika since Nagarjuna mentioned the basic tenets of it in his Root Verses on Madhyamakama Called Discriminatuing Awareness (dBu-ma rtsa-ba shes-rab, Skt. Prajñā-nāma Mūlamadhyamaka Kārikā) In this presentation, karma is a mental urge, or impulse, only in mental actions. In actions of body and speech, the karmic impulse is a form of physical phenomenon. 

Let’s just stick with that first presentation since it is less complex. Just briefly, the pathway of karma is, more specifically, the pathway of a karmic impulse (las-lam). The pathway refers to the karmic action itself. And the karma (las) is the mental urge (sems-pa, Skt. cetanā), or impulse – that mental factor – that prods the mind to initiate, carry out and complete the action. So, the karmic impulse is not the same as the karmic pathway, not the same as the action.

Now, as I mentioned, there are various factors that make a karmic action complete. The main points are found in Vasubandhu’s and Asanga’s abhidharma texts, and what Tsongkhapa does in Lam-rim chen-mo is to take the factors from these texts and to combine them into a list of four factors. This is the standard list that’s usually used in the analysis of karma.

The Four Factors that Make a Pathway of Karma Complete

According to Tsongkhapa’s list, the following factors are needed for a pathway of karmic impulse to be complete and for it to give the fullest and most complete result. 

[1] A basis (gzhi) at which the action is directed. If we use the example of killing, the basis would be a person, or a being, who could die as a result of our action. 

[2] A motivating mental framework. This has three parts: 

• An unmistaken distinguishing (‘du-shes) – we distinguish that it’s this person that we want to kill. If we kill the wrong person, it’s a different karmic result than killing the person that we intended. 
• A motivating intention (’dun-pa) – this is the mental factor of wishing for an intended object and wishing to do an intended action involving the object or being, such as killing a certain person.
• A motivating emotion – in the case of destructive actions, it is one of the three poisonous disturbing emotions or attitudes (nyon-mongs): hostility, longing desire or naivety. In the case of killing, it’s usually hostility.

All three of these mental factors need to be there as part of the contemporaneous motivating mental framework – in other words, when we are actually doing the action. 

[3] An implementation (sbyor-ba) (of a method that causes the action to occur)  – in other words, we have to actually do something to cause the killing to occur. 

[4] A finale (mthar-thug) – the person has to actually die as a result of our action in order for the pathway of karma to be complete. 

If any of these component factors are missing, the pathway of karma is incomplete. In the case of destructive actions, that means that the action either deconstructs into a different type of destructive action or becomes a less destructive actions – for example, we wound someone instead of kill them. 

We find a similar list in the Pali tradition from Buddhaghosa. He says that we need four components for a karmic action to be complete. These are very similar: a basis, a mental framework, an implementation of a method that could cause the action, and what he calls an “endurance,” meaning a completion of the action. Vasubandhu discusses all of these factors, but he doesn’t make them into a list.

So, the usual analysis of the ten destruction actions entails these four factors 

Participant: What is the implementation?

Dr Berzin: One has to do something that would actually bring about a killing, for example. Let’s say, you feed somebody a meal and they choke on it and die. First of all, you didn’t intend to kill the person, so one of the factors of the mental framework – the motivating intention – is incomplete. And what you did wasn’t the type of thing that ordinarily would kill somebody – you served them food in order to feed them, not to kill them. The fact that they choked on the food was not a direct result of serving them food. 

Is the Eating of Animal Flesh a Destructive Action? Is It Like Killing?

Participant: Is the eating of flesh a destructive action in the light of these four factors – because I am causing the death of an animal?

Dr Berzin: Well, that’s a very long discussion. First of all, eating meat is not the destructive action of killing an animal, so it is not one of the ten destructive actions. Then we have to ask whether it is a destructive action at all. If we say yes, then we could also say that eating vegetables is destructive because eating vegetables causes other people to farm, and in order to farm, they are going to kill insects when they plow the ground. So, this becomes a very difficult question. Certainly, we could argue that it builds up the karma for ourselves to be eaten by another animal. That we could argue quite logically. But I don’t think we can say that providing the circumstances for killing is the same as the karmic act of killing. That’s like saying that by crossing the street, we provide the circumstances for cars to kill us – so, it’s better not to cross the street. It’s a difficult point to argue logically. 

Participant: She understood that Sangharakshita argued something like that. Also, Lama Zopa very strongly says that eating of flesh is similar to killing. 

Dr Berzin: That eating meat is similar to killing or is the same as killing? 

Participant: It is killing.  

Participant: Living flesh – just even the word!

Dr Berzin: Well, to eat something that is alive – of course. But to eat it when it’s dead… I don’t know. Then we’d have to differentiate between eating something that had a heart attack and died a natural death or ordering something to be killed in order to eat it, which definitely is the same as killing it ourselves. 

Participant: Lama Zopa also very strongly makes the point that we would be reborn in a hell if we eat flesh. He also quoted sutras on that and was quite radical. I was quite shocked about that.

Dr Berzin: Well, there is a book that was compiled in English. I don’t know if it is by the same Lama Zopa that you’re thinking of. There is a Geshe Sopa, not the one in Wisconsin, but the one in Munich, and he wrote a book on vegetarianism. Perhaps this is the one you’re thinking of. He found a lot of sutra quotations in which the Buddha spoke about not eating meat. His Holiness liked that book very much and praised it very much. However, I must say, I haven’t read it. But I would be very surprised to read in it that eating meat is the same as killing. I think that we’d have to say that eating meat would have negative consequences, but they wouldn’t be the same as actually killing the creature. Whether or not eating meat ripens in going to a hell – that’s something else. I have no idea. 

The point in the analysis of karma is to have it clear what the karmic action is and what its result will be. Different karmic actions have different results. This is the whole point. Destructive is destructive. There’s tremendous suffering as a result. That suffering can come in many different ways. If we want to be precise, then we have to see what the connections actually are of this precise cause with this effect. This is what the discussion is all about. 

Participant: We belong to a whole system, and within this system, if we buy meat in the supermarket, it encourages more meat to be produced.

Dr Berzin: Now, again, I think a lot depends on the motivation – as it says in the list of four factors. Now, there could be tremendous naivety. Most people don’t associate the meat in the supermarket with a living animal. Most children, I think, don’t have that association – that the meat actually comes from an animal. That’s naivety. There could be greed, certainly. But I think the motivation is less strong than if we actually go to the butchers where they have live chickens, and we point to one and say, “Kill it for me. I want to eat it.” I think we need a much stronger motivation to do that than to buy a frozen piece of chicken in a supermarket or get some Chicken McNuggets at McDonalds. 

Participant: But you know that it’s an animal.

Dr Berzin: You don’t know that it’s an animal. That’s my point. I’d say the vast majority of people never ever associate Chicken McNuggets with a live chicken. 

Participant: Maybe it wasn’t a live chicken.

Dr Berzin: Maybe it’s not from a live chicken is another point. [Laughter] That’s another point. But this I am quite sure of: most people in McDonald’s would never ever think that their McDonald’s hamburger came from that cute cow. They don’t think that. Of course not.

Participant: It’s basically based on greed. Or you think how delicious it would taste. So, buying meat at a supermarket is not really motivated by hate. But if you kill an animal…

Dr Berzin: Right. So Christian reports that to actually kill – to catch a fish and kill it and cook it – there is a much stronger motivation, and is a stronger negative action than just buying frozen fish fillet in the supermarket and cooking it in your microwave. 

Well, there are many attitudes. Peasants might just think of the animals as, “Well, I may have had affection for this animal while I raised it, but this is what it is for: it’s for eating.” The motivation could be for survival. It could also be that “God has made living creatures and animals for man to use and to eat. So that’s their purpose, the reason they were created.” 

Participant: How about an Eskimo who makes prayers for their soul?

Dr Berzin: This is a very, very complex topic, but I think that we have to differentiate the gradations of karmic results that come from killing an animal ourselves, asking somebody specifically to kill a certain animal for us, or buying a hamburger at McDonald’s. 

Anyway, that brings us to the end of the class. I know there are some very heated topics here in terms of vegetarianism. The sexual conduct one, I’m sure, is not going to be an easy one, and alcohol is not an easy topic, either. These are usually the topics that Western people find problematic. So, we’ll go on with this.

One thing to add, which is quite clear in the discussions of karma, is that if we are going to commit a destructive action – let’s say, like eating meat – we try to have the factors be as incomplete and weak as possible – so, the motivating thought to be as weak as possible: “I want to gain strength for health reasons,” or whatever. But make sure that’s not just an excuse for greed. Also, counteract the action with positive things, like saying prayers for the animal. So, even when we do something destructive, we can try to minimize the consequences.