We have been discussing the text, Letter to a Friend, which the great Indian master of Madhyamaka, Nagarjuna, wrote to his patron, King Udayibhadra, in South India. In this letter, Nagarjuna outlines the basic principles of the Mahayana path. We have been going through it quite slowly, filling in a lot of details about what Nagarjuna is referring to.
We are on verse five:
[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.
We saw that in Asanga’s presentation of karma, which is the one we are focusing on as it is less complex than Vasubandhu’s presentation, karma (las) is exclusively a mental factor, a mental urge (sems-pa), or impulse, that brings us into a physical, verbal or mental action – whether constructive, destructive, or unspecified. And the pathway of karma – more specifically, the pathway of a karmic impulse – is the action that is brought on by and that follows from that impulse.
Constructive karma here primarily refers to refraining from acting destructively. So, when an occasion arises in which we have the opportunity to act destructively and when we might even want to act destructively, we restrain ourselves from doing so because we see the negative consequences that would follow.
The negative consequences don’t follow in terms of some punishment because we’ve broken a law that either Buddha set down or that the society has made. They are simply the results of having acted destructively – karmic cause and effect. So, we experience suffering; we experience various limitations and so on. And all of that just perpetuates our samsaric existence. In a Mahayana sense, this also limits our capacity to help others. So, we want to refrain from destructive behavior not only because we want to get rid of our own suffering but also because it prevents us from being able to really help others.
Last time, we discussed the four factors that need to be present for the result of an action to be its fullest. We talked about these in terms of the destructive action of killing. These four are:
[1] A basis – a being or object at which the action is aimed.
[2] A motivating mental framework, which has three parts: (1) an unmistaken distinguishing of the basis toward whom the action is directed or that is involved with the action; (2) a motivating intention; and (3) a motivating emotion, which in the case of destructive actions is a disturbing emotion. All three of these factors need to be present when we enter into and carry out the action – what we call the “contemporaneous motivation.”
[3] An implementation (of a method that causes the action to occur) – we have to actually do something to bring the action about.
[4] A finale – the action must reach its intended conclusion. In the case of killing, the person or being has to die.
There are many, many other factors that affect the heaviness of the karmic result that follows. We can get into that a little bit later.
Today, we want to look a little more closely at the ten destructive actions, which are the major destructive actions that Buddha pointed out. There are many other destructive actions, a number of which can be included in the general category of the ten destructive actions, but the actual, definitive ten destructive actions have certain factors that need to be complete. It is important when we follow Buddhist ethical discipline guidelines, to refrain specifically from these ten, although we want to refrain from other destructive actions as well. So, even though the action of injuring somebody – punching them or whatever – is not in the list of ten, that obviously doesn’t mean that it’s not a destructive action. It is a destructive action, so we would restrain from that as well.
Let’s go through these destructive actions by looking at them in the light of the four factors that make a karmic action, a pathway of karma, complete. There are three destructive actions of body, four of speech and three of mind. When we speak of the destructive actions of mind, we are talking about a way of thinking. We are not talking about a disturbing emotion that might accompany the way of thinking; we are talking about the actual train of thought, the action that’s involved in that. Of course, if it’s destructive, there would need to be a disturbing emotion there to make the action complete.
Killing
The Basis
The first of the destructive actions of body is cutting off someone’s life, taking the life of some being – in other words, killing. The basis for the action has to be a specific living being other than ourselves. This could be a human or a nonhuman. It also could also be a being that is not-yet-born – in other words, still in the womb. This, of course, gets into the whole topic of abortion, which is a difficult topic because it is very difficult to specify when life begins.
The description that is given in the Guhyasamaja Tantra explains that the consciousness of the bardo being enters the mouth of the father, goes down the central channel with the white bodhichitta energy and, together with the white bodhichitta liquid – the semen and the sperm – enters into the womb of the mother where the bodhichitta energy and bodhichitta liquid join. Now, if taken literally, that becomes very problematic in terms of birth control. Does this mean that the bardo consciousness only enters the father when it knows that there is going to be conception – so, it knows that it’s not merely sex with contraception, masturbation, or whatever? This becomes a bit problematic, as it certainly couldn’t know beforehand. That just doesn’t make any sense, in any case.
So, one has to look at this description from Guhyasamaja as being a way of conceptualizing the generation process in samsara – to make this analogous to the way in which you generate a mandala in the actual meditation and the way that you would then eventually generate yourself as a Buddha-figure later on in the practice of tantra, on the more advanced stages. You often have this in tantra, particularly the highest class of tantra – that you want to make the basis that is going to be purified and the practice that purifies it parallel to each other.
So, in the visualizations, one imagines that the deities of the Guhyasamaja Tantra come into the mouth of main male figure, dissolve into the form of drops and go down and out through his organ into the womb of the female partner. Then, in the womb of the female partner, the figures are generated from the drops – the mandala is generated there – and then each deity, one by one, comes back out of the womb and into the external world. So, that sequence was made to parallel to the way in which the conception and birth processes take in the samsaric world. That process of samsaric rebirth is the basis to be purified. That doesn’t necessarily mean that this description is to be taken literally, in a biological sense – that this is what actually takes place. This is the way that His Holiness the Dalai Lama explains it. More traditional lamas might take it literally, but His Holiness speaks like this.
His Holiness is really open to the discussion with scientists about when life actually begins and what the definition of life is – particularly, the discussion dealing with the issue of when the physical basis in the womb is sufficiently developed to be able to support consciousness. That’s a difficult issue, actually – when that really occurs – because there is no clear definition of consciousness or mind either.
In the twelve links of dependent arising, the first link that happens when reborn is the second phase of the third link, resultant consciousness. Then there there is the link of nameable mental faculties with or without form. At that stage of the development of the embryo in the womb, there is the consciousness faculty. There would also be some form, some physical basis. All the other aggregates that are mental factors are there in potential form. So, when investigating what point in the development of an embryo is Buddhism describing, it needs to be when the embryo has consciousness. So, it becomes a very difficult thing to say: where is the actual dividing line between when there is no consciousness and when it is present? The scientists at these meetings with His Holiness were unable to say specifically when life, consciousness, begins in an embryo. They also weren’t able to say when life ends, in terms of brain death, heart death. What, actually, is the point where you can say that a being is actually dead? These are very difficult topics.
In any case, if the fetus or the embryo has reached a certain point at which you can say that it does have consciousness, then an abortion at that point would have to be considered taking a life from the point of the view of the basis.
Suicide
Suicide is certainly a destructive action, but it’s not as severe nor does it cause as many problems for oneself as murdering somebody else. This is because of the complication of reaching a finale. For the finale of the action of killing to be complete, the being who is killed needs to die before the person who does the killing. With suicide, we die with the finale of the act. Also, in that case, the negative potential from killing only goes on the mental continuum at the beginning stage of the next rebirth, which would be the death existence and the bardo. The bardo is already the next rebirth, the beginning of the next rebirth. So, in light of those technicalities, we’d have to say that the destructive action that would have reached a finale would just be stabbing ourselves, shooting ourselves or whatever, but it wouldn’t be cutting off a life. That’s the analysis as to why suicide is not one of the ten destructive actions.
Participant: When you kill yourself and stay alive for three or five seconds before you really die, then you have an idea. And that is a karmic seed.
Dr Berzin: Well, the point is that you can’t say that you kill yourself and that you’re still alive for three or four seconds before you die. When you kill yourself, you are dead. Those three or four seconds before, you have only succeeded in either stabbing yourself with a knife or taking a poison or shooting yourself. That’s the only action that is complete at that point. The actual taking of a life is only complete when the person dies before you do. As a lawyer, you would appreciate these technicalities.
Participant: But what about if you kill yourself in a car accident?
Dr Berzin If you kill yourself in an accident, the action is not intentional. Then you haven’t actually taken your own life. There has to be an intention to take your own life, and you have to do something that results in your death.
Participant: But when you are driving, you have an idea. And then you are so upset about your circumstances. You see this bridge, but you just crash into it. You have still this…
Dr Berzin: Well, then you have the intention to kill yourself. But the point is that for the ten destructive actions to be complete and to give their fullest karmic results, the action has to reach its finale. From a technical standpoint, suicide is not one of the ten destructive actions. Of course, it’s a destructive action. We are just talking about what technically falls within these categories. That’s all.
Participant: With the example of suicide, you aren’t in a position to look at what you’ve done and say, “Ah, now it’s done.”
Dr Berzin: Right. And the karmic potential will not come onto your mental continuum in that lifetime; it will come onto the mental continuum of the next lifetime.
A lawyer would delight in the analysis of all of these because it is really very technical. You can ask, “Well, why bother with all of this?” I think the reason is that a Buddha knows the karmic causes for everything that anybody experiences. So, karmic consequences are going to be different, depending on whether all of these various factors are complete or not. By knowing the karmic causes, a Buddha knows what specific component actions the person has to do, at least from the relative level, in order to overcome the karmic consequences. That’s why we have this detailed analysis.
Motivating Mental Framework – Unmistaken Distinguishing, Motivating Intention, Motivating Emotion
The next factor is the motivating mental framework, which has three components. The first one is unmistaken distinguishing. We have to be certain, not confused, about whom or what we intend to kill. We discussed this last time. Taking the life of somebody by mistake, thinking that they were the person we intended to kill, is less severe than killing the intended victim. Moreover, we have to fully intend to terminate his or her existence. Killing somebody by accident doesn’t have the same consequences as premeditated murder. So, in terms of the intention, accidentally stepping on an ant is less severe than hunting down a fly or mosquito and purposely, intentionally, killing it.
When it comes to the destructiveness of killing insects, His Holiness always points out that we shouldn’t consider it trivial to swat a fly or mosquito because what that does is to build up a destructive habit – that anytime something annoys us, the way that we solve it is to kill it, to be violent and strike out against it. Soon, he says, it becomes difficult to draw the line of where we stop killing in order to solve our problems. It’s an interesting point, actually. And if we look at certain decisions of governments… when something annoys them, what do they do? They seek the violent solution. It’s the same frame of mind as seeking to swat a fly or mosquito instead of trying to catch it in a cup and taking it outside or putting up a mosquito net.
Then, for the karmic pathway of cutting off someone’s life to be complete, the action has to be contemporaneously motivated by one of three poisonous attitudes. Out of hostility, we could kill an enemy or an insect or a snake. Because of desire or attachment, we could kill a sheep or a chicken for its meat. Or we could hunt fish for fun and relaxation, which is the same type of thing – namely, for desire. Out of naivety, we could take the life of an animal or even a human being in the belief that if we offer a blood sacrifice to the sun god or something like that, the crops in our field will grow better – this type of naivety.
All three of these factors need to be there as part of the contemporaneous motivation – so, at the time we enter into an action.
Implementation of a Method
For the action of killing to be complete, we have to do something; we have to use some sort of means to carry the action out. The method could be to give poison, to use a weapon or our own hands, to use black magic or something like that. In fact, we don’t actually have to execute the action ourselves. It says in the abhidharma that if we have somebody else commit a murder for us, we build up the same negative potential as the actual killer. The only difference is that our action of giving the order is an action of speech, while the action of the actual killer is an action of the body. The same thing is true when ordering an animal to be killed for our table – like in these Chinese restaurants that have a tank full of fish or in other restaurants that have a tank full of lobsters, where we choose the fish or lobster that we want – the victim – and then the cook kills it. We build up as much negative karma as if we had killed it ourselves.
Participant: It seems like there’s a lot of caring just about one’s own karma – what’s going to happen to you – and not about the animals being killed.
Dr Berzin: Animals and people who are killed by others are experiencing the results of their previous karmic actions of taking the lives of others. The negative potentials from their previous actions may or may not finish ripening with this one experience of being killed.
Participant: What about in America when they are killing so many people and thinking that they are doing a good job?
Dr Berzin: Well, on the one hand, it could be naivety – thinking that killing these people is going to make the world safe for democracy. On the other hand, let’s take the example of the Buddha in a previous lifetime as a bodhisattva, where he killed the person who was going to kill so many other people. I suppose that in our modern world, we would call this killing a terrorist. Now, as we explained, Buddha fully acknowledged that killing this terrorist was a destructive action, but he was willing to experience the negative results of that himself – even to go to hell for it – in order to save the lives of the people that this terrorist was going to kill and also to save the terrorist from building up more negative karma. It’s hard to say – was the Buddha being naive?
Now, this is a very difficult thing. Certainly, the people out in the field in Iraq or Afghanistan – how do they know whether this or that person is a terrorist and whether or this person really was going to kill somebody? But Buddha saw, in this instance, that there was no way to stop this terrorist from killing the others, other than killing him himself. If there had been a more peaceful way of stopping him, then that would have been the preferred solution. So, that’s very difficult. We could say that, from a removed point of view, everything the Americans are doing is bad. But if we wanted to be more objective about it, we’d have to say that maybe they are stopping some terrorist attacks. Maybe in doing it, though, they are over-killing – killing ten thousand innocent people in order to get one terrorist.
Participant: What about during Nazi Germany, when people were thinking that killing the Jews was a beneficial action – that it was going to save the purity of the Aryan race, save the economy, and so on?
Dr Berzin: Well, that becomes a very interesting question. The order to kill Jews was certainly based on naivety in terms of what was beneficial or non-beneficial. But what about the people who carried out those orders? Were they actually responsible or not? This becomes, of course, a big legal question as well. They can say, “We were just following orders.” Would that be naive or not? What about the situation that if they didn’t carry out the orders, they themselves would be shot?
This is a very, very difficult type of situation. And it gets into a whole discussion of… remember, we looked at the difference between the causal motivation and the contemporaneous motivation. The causal one – which happens before the action – might not have included any intention to kill. So, the soldiers might not have had a prior intention to kill. They didn’t necessarily have any hatred for the people that they killed. But, then, at the time of actually killing, they might have had hostility. They would at least have had these mental factors that we we discussed that make an action destructive: no scruples, no sense of values, no sense of moral self-dignity – how their actions reflect on their people – and so on. So, I don’t know if we can say that somebody that’s just following orders is totally innocent.
Participant: And then they rejoiced in what they did, and said, “Ah, today I was more efficient: I killed five thousand rather than four thousand.”
Dr Berzin: This is even further ignorance.
Participant: But that happened.
Dr Berzin: Of course, it happened. But you’d have to say that it was naivety. They certainly had the intention to kill, and they certainly recognized whom they killed. They didn’t recognize that it was a destructive action, though. So, this is naivety.
Participant: So, then you could say, according to this, that it’s not so severe.
Dr Berzin: Well, no. According to this, it is severe. They had the basis: people. They had unmistaken distinguishing of the people they intended to kill; they had the intention to kill; and they had a disturbing emotion, which was naivety. They implemented a method to carry out the killing, and the people died. So, it’s complete. They didn’t instigate it. It wasn’t their idea originally; it was somebody else’s idea. But they actually did it. It was a complete karmic action, a complete pathway of karma. So, negative potentials would come onto their mental continuum.
The difficulty, of course, was that if they realized that this was wrong and, so, didn’t do it, they would be shot themselves. Were they willing to be shot themselves, or would they do the killing? This is a very difficult one. It always says in the teachings – not in the teachings, but in many prayers, “I will keep my ethical discipline and not break my vows and so on, even at the cost of my life.” It always says that. The question is: would we actually do that? Would we be willing to give up our lives? I would think that many people would not be willing to give up their lives.
So, you go into the army and do what you are ordered to do. Now, if you are shooting people, of course, you could miss. But, then, in an actually battle, when people are shooting at you, if you purposely miss, you are going to get killed. So, then you get caught up in the situation. That’s why the contemporaneous motivation is important. It’s more significant than the causal one that you have before the actual action is initiated. If you are forced to do a destructive action that you don’t really want to do, but you would be shot if you didn’t do it, at least you can feel regret afterwards and not rejoice at all in what you did. You could also do constructive things to try to counter-balance it. There are many, many things that you could do to lessen the karmic consequence of it. You could try not to have a disturbing emotion at the time when you’re actually carrying it out. You could try to do it in as compassionate a way as possible and to inflict as little suffering as possible onto the others. So, there are some alternatives.
Participant: I think of the effect that it has on your own mind when you really are convinced that “I am doing this for the better of the world.”
Dr Berzin: Come on. People think, “If I shoot up heroin every day, this is a great thing, this is wonderful.” People are convinced that so many negative things are great. That doesn’t mean that it’s OK and that there aren’t negative consequences. It’s just naivety.
Participant: I wonder about the heaviness of the karma, though. I mean, when you’re really enraged, and you hate this person – “This is really upsetting. I can’t stand them!” – that’s one thing. But if you think, “Oh, I’m doing this to bring democracy to the world. I’m doing something really good…”
Dr Berzin: Well, this gets into the question of which disturbing emotion brings the strongest negative consequences in a particular destructive action. You would have to say that in this particular destructive action, that of killing, hatred would bring about stronger consequences than, say, desire – killing for fun, like fishing or hunting – or naivety. Which disturbing emotion affects the strength of the ripening. But I’m sure that people were totally convinced when they sacrificed people to the sun god that doing that was beneficial.
Participant: Is it not said that the motivation is the most important?
Dr Berzin: We have to understand motivation in the Buddhist sense. The word “motivation” (kun-slong Skt. samutthana) has several meanings. Literally, it means something that causes something else to arise. It can refer to the motivating emotion, the motivating intention, the motivating karmic impulse, or the motivating drive, which is a composite of all three. Motivation, in the Buddhist sense, refers primarily to the motivating intention or, more specifically, the motivating aim (kun-slong-gi blo Skt. samutthanabuddhi) – what we aim, or intend, to do with or to the object of our action, which also implies what we aim, or intend, to accomplish by doing it. There is, of course, a motivating emotion that accompanies it. In the West, we think of motivation primarily as the emotion. But from the Buddhist point of view, the motivation is primarily the intention.
Participant: I was wondering – what about these weapons dealers that are feeding the conflicts in Africa? Probably, their motivation is…
Dr Berzin: Greed. To get money,
Participant: Yes. But it’s also really to kill the people in a way.
Dr Berzin: Yeah, but their aim is to make money from selling weapons. So, now we get into inappropriate ways of making a living. That comes up later in this verse. That would be an inappropriate way of making a livelihood – to sell weapons. That gets into the discussion of alcohol – that to serve alcohol is just as bad as drinking it. I don’t know about it being just as bad, but it’s in that same category.
Anyway, let’s go on.
Finale
The act of taking a life reaches its finale when the victim dies before we do. This can happen immediately, or it could happen much later. If we shoot somebody and we die before they die, then the action of killing is incomplete in this lifetime. What we will have been accomplished in this lifetime is just shooting and wounding somebody, not killing them.
So, these are the points with cutting off someone’s life.
Taking What’s Not Given
The Basis
Now, the next one is taking what’s not given to us. The basis of our act of thieving has to be some object of value that belongs to somebody else. Remember that we discussed that stealing doesn’t refer to taking things that aren’t owned by anybody, like picking wildflowers in the forest. That’s not stealing because it’s not taking something that belongs to somebody else. It has to belong to somebody else. That would include anything that we have no right to take, use, or keep as our own.
So, this includes objects that we have borrowed and not paid back. It can include taxes, fines, tolls for using a road, admission fees to clubs or movies, travel fare on the U-Bahn… these types of things that we are obliged to pay. Intellectual property would also be included here. So, pirated editions of things – that’s also taking something that’s not given; it belongs to somebody else. Even if we find something on the ground that somebody has obviously lost, we should make an effort to find the rightful owner, not just keep it for ourselves. If we had lost our wallet and somebody found it and gave it back, wouldn’t we be happy? The same is true of anybody else who’s lost something. So, just because it’s on the ground doesn’t mean that we can keep it. It obviously must belong to somebody.
Motivating Mental Framework – Unmistaken Distinguishing, Motivating Intention, Motivating Emotion
Then, when the urge arises to take some object, we need to be not mistaken about what we steal; we must have unmistaken distinguishing. Let’s say that I want to steal your umbrella, but I mistake it for somebody else’s umbrella and steal that instead – that’s not the same. We also have to fully intend to take the object regardless of what we intend to do with it afterwards – whether we plan to get rid of it immediately or to keep it for ourselves. Then, one of the three disturbing attitudes/emotions has to be involved. With hostility, we might take the wealth of a hated enemy plunder their villages – this type of thing. With desire and attachment, we might steal something that we find irresistibly attractive. Out of naivety, we could claim (this is the example in the text) that as a holy person, we have the right to help ourselves to anything that we wish or that as a devoted disciple, we have the right to go out and steal for our master. This would be an example of naivety. But then, it gets into this thing of “steal from the rich to give to the poor” – is that naivety? What is that? Stealing, obviously, is stealing. Or we might think with stubborn and foolish defiance that there is nothing wrong with cheating the government or getting away with as much as we can.
Participant: But the law is so complicated that we make mistakes!
Dr Berzin: I don’t know. This becomes a big problem – actually an ethical issue – because if the taxes are going to buy weapons to support a war, does not paying that tax constitute a destructive action? I think that’s a difficult one. We would need lawyers to discuss this type of thing. But if we are benefiting from the government in terms of the taxes going to pay for things that we ourselves get, like unemployment money and health insurance, most of our college education being free, and these sorts of things, then, obviously, paying the taxes is appropriate. Otherwise, we are really taking something that was not given. If we are not getting anything from the government and the money is only going for helping others… well, we could say that this is a pretty good Mahayana reason to pay the taxes. But if the money is just going for weapons and killing people, then we would have to analyze if it’s really proper or not. As I said, it’s a difficult issue.
Participant: I just thought about the story of Naropa, I think, stealing soup for Tilopa. I always wondered about that.
Dr Berzin: I must say that I don’t know that story.
Participant: I think that Naropa begged for some food to give to Tilopa, and Tilopa was very delighted. Before, Tilopa had been behaving in a very strange manner. Then, he changed and was suddenly very kind, very nice, very happy and pleased and so on. So, Naropa wanted to do this again. Of course, he couldn’t show up and ask at the same place again, so he just stole the pot with the soup. So, the people caught him and beat him up.
Dr Berzin: So, was it destructive?
Participant: Yeah, probably.
Dr Berzin: There is one Jataka tale in which Buddha in a previous lifetime was a disciple of a teacher, and the teacher said to all the students, “Go out and steal for me.” All the students went out to steal except Buddha. Buddha just sat in his room. The teacher came up to him and said, “Why don’t you go out and steal for me? Don’t you want to make me happy?” And Buddha said, “How can stealing make anybody happy?” And the teacher said, “Ah, ha. You’re the only one who understood the point of the lesson.”
Participant: I think that this was one of the trials that Naropa underwent in following his teacher. That I find is a bit problematic – that after having been a monk and everything, he does that as a trial in following his teacher and learning…
Dr Berzin: I don’t know. If the teacher asks us to do something destructive, do we do it? It says clearly in some texts that if the teacher asks us to do something against the vinaya, we don’t do it. So, I don’t understand that example with Tilopa and Naropa.
Participant: I think the teacher didn’t ask; he was just pleased. But from Naropa’s side, it’s a bit strange.
Dr Berzin: Yes, that is strange.
Participant: I have a very general question. Again, I think maybe you talked about it already, but is this Nagarjuna the one who wrote the Root Verses on the Middle Way and all these kinds of things? Or is that another Nagarjuna?
Dr Berzin: The Nagarjuna who wrote this letter is certainly the Nagarjuna who wrote all the various things on Madhyamaka.
There are commentaries to the Guhyasamaja Tantra that are also attributed to Nagarjuna. Some people question whether it really is the same Nagarjuna, though, because there are also commentaries to Guhyasamaja written by Nagarjuna’s disciple, Aryadeva, and by Aryadeva’s disciple, Chandrakirti, all three of whom are considered to be the great Madhyamaka authors. Often this is pointed out as showing that the teachings of tantra and the teachings of Madhyamaka go together. Now, some scholars would say that the commentaries to Guhyasamaja were written by other people who just gave themselves the names Nagarjuna, Aryadeva, and Chandrakirti to show the consistency but that, actually, they weren’t the same people. That’s hard to really prove.
Also, what’s hard is that all of these people are traditionally accredited with having superhuman long lives as well. So, from that point of view, one could account for them writing in different Sanskrit styles, for instance. If somebody supposedly lived for six hundred years, then they could write in different styles of Sanskrit. So, the question is very difficult. And to just give the answer that they’re not the same person because one doesn’t think they’re the same person is not a sufficient reason.
Participant: But this one is sure.
Dr Berzin: But this one is for sure the same one.
Participant: These verses on emptiness – because they are quite distinct, have a distinct flavor, this seems to be a different text.
Dr Berzin: That’s true. This text and the Precious Garland, which is also a text that Nagarjuna wrote as advice to the king – these are quite different in flavor from the Madhyamaka texts that Nagarjuna wrote. He also wrote some praises that seem to be in a slightly different style as well. But why can’t somebody write about two different topics? There’s no reason why not, except to say, “I don’t think they did.” But the timing is correct. Also, the Guhyasamaja Tantra is the first tantra that appeared, so, from that point of view, Nagarjuna could have been around and written a commentary to it.
Participant: It was around 200 A.D.?
Dr Berzin: Around 150 A.D.
Participant: So, Guhyasamaja also started at that time?
Dr Berzin: Yes. Guhyasamaja is the earliest tantra.
The question is, was this really written to a king, or is it just that if we follow this advice, we can become kings? According to what various scholars have written, it was written to a king. Nagarjuna did seem to have a relationship with the king in Andhra Pradesh. There are the ruins of the historical town Nagarjunakonda, for example, near the present-day city of Nagarjuna Sagar in Andhra Pradesh, and both have Nagarjuna’s name associated with them The only problem, of course, is identifying who the king actually was because the name that he has here is not the name of any of the kings of that particular dynasty at that time. But people tend to have quite a few different names.
Also, unfortunately, the Sanskrit original of our text doesn’t exist anymore. All we have is the Tibetan translation of his name. That doesn’t help either. There is a list of the kings of the Satavahana dynasty that ruled that whole area of Andhra, all the way into Maharashtra as well, at that time. Undoubtedly, the name was referring to one of those kings.
The Implementation of a Method
OK. Now, we have to use some kind of method to make the action of stealing occur. With shoplifting, we would have to actually grab the items in the store that we wanted to steal. With holding somebody up or stealing from a store, we could point a gun at the person to force them to hand the items over to us. We could also have somebody else commit such a robbery for us. Or to ride on the U-Bahn without paying, we’d have to jump over the turnstile or something like that. We have to actually do something to make the action happen.
Finale
The act of theft reaches its finale when we develop the attitude that what we have taken is now ours.
Participant: What about if you buy some stuff from the flea market that was stolen, but you don’t know that it’s stolen?
Dr Berzin: Then the unmistaken distinguishing is not complete. We have to correctly distinguish that the item belongs to somebody else. So, from that point of view it’s not complete.
Participant: There’s a similar distinction in the German law, actually. You have to know that it was stolen by somebody. If you know, you can be punished. But if you don’t know, you’re not.
Participant: What about if it’s obvious? Like in some Mexican flea markets, sometimes they have very good quality products but for very cheap prices, which you know are stolen.
Dr Berzin: So, what about when it’s obvious that it was stolen? Then you know it was stolen.
Participant: But it was not stolen for you.
Dr Berzin: That’s just it: it’s not the same action as knowingly stealing. I don’t recall correctly with this, but in the bodhisattva vows, isn’t there the thing of not taking something that was stolen from the sangha and not even using something that was stolen from the sangha? But there, again, I think that you would have to know that it was stolen.
Participant: But it wasn’t stolen specifically for you.
Dr Berzin: Well, this was the point here – that even if you intend to sell what you’ve stolen to somebody else, still you think that it belongs to you – the person who steals it.
Participant: Yeah. It was for the buyer?
Dr Berzin: For the buyer? The buyer doesn’t know. If the buyer does know – that’s different. If the buyer doesn’t know, it’s not the action of stealing, just as the action of eating meat is not the same action as killing the animal itself… unless you order the animal to be killed. Likewise, unless you order something to be stolen for you, it’s not the same; it’s a different action. Now, I don’t know if buying stolen goods while not knowing that they are stolen is a destructive action. I’m not quite sure what that would be.
Participant: It also gets into whole point that everything we use, everything we buy and eat implies some destruction – some killing, for example.
Dr Berzin: Well, it doesn’t necessarily imply stealing everything that we use. It could imply exploiting people and so on; that’s certainly there. But I think that in general, these sorts of things come into the category of the destructiveness of samsara, ss we discussed before. If you walk on the ground, inevitably you are going to step on something. If you eat food, inevitably you are going to take the life of something. When you drink water, you’re going to take the life of something. That’s part of the all-pervasive suffering of samsara. Just living perpetuates it.
Now, of course, you could try to minimize these types of things. That’s why Buddha gave the instruction for the rainy season retreat (actually, he was following the example of the Jains there). It was so the monks would avoid walking through the rice paddies, fields, and so on during the rainy season when there really are an awful lot of insects on the ground. You can see that if you live in India during the monsoon – how many insects are actually on the ground at that time. It’s amazing.
Inappropriate Sexual Behavior – Four Varieties
The next destructive action of the body is inappropriate sexual behavior. This is a really complicated topic and, perhaps, one of the most difficult ones to really understand. Inappropriate sexual behavior can be of four varieties involving:
- Sexual behavior with someone who is unwise to become involved with,
- Sexual behavior in an unwise manner,
- Sexual behavior in an unwise place, and
- Sexual behavior at an unwise time.
Now, it’s interesting that in the earliest versions of the ten destructive actions that are found in the Pali texts of the Theravada tradition, they only mention inappropriate persons. They don’t mention any of this other material like inappropriate manner, place, or time. But then, again, it’s hard to say that the Pali was the earliest. They were first written down in the first century BCE.
The Sarvastivada tradition broke off from the Theravada tradition in the third century BCE at the Third Buddhist Council. One branch of Sarvastivada went to Gandhara, which is in present-day northern Pakistan and eastern Afghanistan. Its texts were in Gandhari, and they too were written down at a very early period, perhaps even earlier than the Pali ones. These texts were the basis for the Sautrantika school but have only survived in fragments. The Chittamatra school also developed in Gandhara and shared many tenets in common with Sautrantika. The other branch of Sarvastivada was in Kashmir. It developed into the Vaibhashika school. Its texts were codified and first written down in the first century CE at the Fourth Buddhist Council, and they were written in Sanskrit.
It is in the early abhidharma texts of the Sarvastivada tradition that you start to get the four categories of inappropriate sexual behavior. Later, in the fourth century CE you get these categories in their fully developed forms, including these four categories, in Vasubandhu’s Vaibhashika text Abhidharmakosha and Asanga’s Autocommentary to his Chittamatra text Abhidharmasamuccaya.
It’s hard to say that just because these vows are not in the Pali tradition, they were just made up. Were they made up for that time? Were they implicit in the earlier stuff and only later specified because some circumstances came up? For instance, Buddha made various vows for the monks on specific occasions when some problem came up in the sangha. Also, what was the influence of the cultural area in which Sarvastivada flourished, where there was contact with Persian culture and Central Asian cultures. It’s very hard to say.
In any case, the abhidharma traditions that were followed in Nalanda and so on and that the Tibetans follow, as well as the Chinese and East Asian Buddhists, are all based on these two main abhidharmas, the Abhidharmakosha of Vasubandhu and the Abhidharmasamuccaya of Asanga.
Unwise Persons
Persons unwise to have sex with, which is the first category, include twenty different types of people who are inappropriate to have sex with. Now, I’ve looked at the vinayas from various Hinayana traditions, some of which are preserved in Chinese, for example. This list of the twenty types of people, as well as what you have in the Pali tradition and so on, is slightly different in all of those traditions. What is noteworthy is that in none of them do you have mention of incest, sexual relations with your own mother or daughter. Also, it is only one of them that speaks about inappropriate men to have sex with – inappropriate men for women, for gays or whomever. The others only list inappropriate women. So, again, does that mean that in the traditions that don’t have inappropriate male partners listed, it’s OK for a woman to have sex with anybody, with somebody else’s partner? This becomes very problematic.
But the main thing is to abstain from sexual relations with anybody who is somebody else’s partner. Also, it can’t be with somebody who isn’t given permission to have sexual relations – for instance, somebody who is under the protection of their parents or their guardians, or somebody who is protected by a vow of celibacy or who is in the king’s harem, and these sorts of things. These would be inappropriate partners. Now, there is not any mention of whether or not the person who has sex with this inappropriate partner has a partner themselves. So, this is screwy in this presentation. It seems to be perfectly OK for a married man to go out with a prostitute, for example. Prostitution is never included in the lists of inappropriate partners. So, again, one has to analyze this. Is this cultural? What is it?
Participant: In Western culture, I think, most people would find it more inappropriate to go out with someone if you yourself have a partner than the other way round.
Dr Berzin: Right. In most Western societies, we would consider it more inappropriate if we have a partner ourselves to go out with somebody else than it would be for us to just go out with somebody’s partner, even if we are single, for example. Now, this, I think, is because of the cultural differences. In the West, in Christianity, marriage is considered a sacrament. It’s a holy thing from God. In Judaism it’s also a religiously significant act. In Buddhist culture, it’s not. Not in the slightest. Certainly not in the Tibetan tradition.
The Buddhists had all their ceremonies done by Hindus in the Indian tradition. This was one of the reasons why Buddhism failed in India, why it died out – because all the secular rituals were taken from Hinduism. There were no Buddhist secular institutions for marriage, birth, death, or anything like that. So, because of that, by the time that the monasteries were destroyed, the people were all following Hindu rituals. So, Buddhism was just considered another form of Hinduism. Buddhism was swallowed up by Hinduism.
In Tibet, there is no religious marriage ceremony, none at all. When people get married, it’s just an agreement with the families. The man and the wife sit together and get hundreds of katas put over their necks, and that’s it! They usually will ask some monks to perform a puja, but it is not appropriate for the celibate monks to be there in terms of the marriage. Also, divorce is no big thing either. And having more than one wife or husband is no big thing. So, that also is not inappropriate – to have more than one marriage partner. So, it becomes very, very difficult to sort out what is cultural and what is naturally destructive.
Participant: Well, we probably don’t have to separate them, no?
Dr Berzin: Well, we do in terms of thinking what’s appropriate in the West. Can we modify this for Western culture, for Western people? This is the big question. A lot of Buddhist teachers in the West say, “Well, let’s just follow humanitarian guidelines here. As long as your sexual behavior doesn’t hurt anybody, then it is cool. It’s OK.” But that is not a Buddhist criterion at all.
The main criterion is not to act under the influence of a strong disturbing emotion. But then, again, it’s hard to have sex without some desire. So, what is too much disturbing emotion? Well, they say that having sex more than five times in a row is too much. So, four times in a row is OK, but five is too many? This seems pretty weird. But then you have to ascertain: what does it mean to say “five in a row”? How long does the interval between these five need to be? I don’t know; that’s not clear. Does it mean in one session? Does it mean five days in a row? What does it mean?
Participant: I think, also, that by Western standards, it’s more appropriate to have sex with somebody you like than to have sex with a prostitute or to marry somebody for monetary reasons or something.
[Audience discussion about the element of love]
Dr Berzin: Just to say that love is the criterion for what is appropriate sexual behavior… we could love our dog, and have sex with the dog. That doesn’t make it appropriate. Or we could love somebody else’s partner.
Anyway, let’s just go through. Those are the ones that are in the list of inappropriate partners.
Now, the later lists also include having sex with a child. So, there it starts to get into this. It’s also only in the later texts that incest starts to be mentioned. Incest was a custom among the Persians that the Indians in Gandhara and Kashmir came into contact with, and this freaked them out. They also included that an inappropriate partner would be somebody of one’s own sex, ourselves, or with an animal. Now, this gets into a very difficult discussion.
Participant: “Ourselves”?
Dr Berzin: Ourselves – as in masturbation. That’s also considered a destructive action from this orthodox point of view.
Participant: Because it increases desire?
Dr Berzin: Well, this is the real question. Why are masturbation and homosexuality included here?
Participant: There are no arguments in the original text supporting this?
Dr Berzin: There are no arguments, no discussions of this whatsoever. So, we’d have to think that, first of all, if the list only includes inappropriate women to have sex with, it can’t mean that women cannot have destructive sexual behavior. It just has to mean that the list was written only from the point of the view of men. And we’d also have to say that it was written only from the point of view of heterosexual men. So, this is the argument that I would use – that we have to have a list of inappropriate partners for women, a list of inappropriate partners for both heterosexual men and women, a list for homosexual men and women and also for bisexual men and women, for that matter. That’s the first point.
The second point is that at the time in which this was written, people got married when they were eight or ten years old, before they reached puberty – when masturbation wasn’t really an issue. So, then the question is: if you have a partner with whom you are having sex, why would you masturbate? It would have to be because you have very strong desire. This, I think, is one criterion, at least according to the analysis that I did of whether or not one’s sexual behavior is motivated by discontent. If you are discontent with what you have, then you have to have something else – to be with somebody else’s partner or to be inventive with sexual gymnastics, like figuring out another position, another way, another orifice, or whatever. To me, that makes a little bit of sense in terms of this analysis.
Participant: Somebody was telling me that he recently heard the Dalai Lama saying that homosexuality is not bad for society. But His Holiness because of this, I guess, made an announcement saying that he didn’t believe it was bad for individuals either, but he couldn’t find any information about that.
Dr Berzin: Well, what His Holiness the Dalai Lama’s position on this is has to be seen from several points of view. From the point of view of being the upholder of tradition, he can’t just change the tradition. He’s said many, many times that changes in anything concerning vinaya or ethics have to be agreed upon by a council of elders. And it can’t be just the Tibetans either. This is the reason he is taking this action concerning the full nuns’ ordination. There is a big conference these days in Dharamsala – just with those from the Tibetan Buddhist tradition – to try to finally come to a decision about the full nun’s ordination. And then His Holiness wants to convene a grand council with the other traditions of Buddhism – the Sri Lankan, Theravadan, Thai, etc. I’ve heard him say privately that he thinks that homosexuality is the same type of issue that needs to be re-examined. But in public situations, he has to say that this is what it says in the texts.
Participant: I heard him also say that it’s better when homosexuals love each other, at least. It’s better than if they fight or…
Dr Berzin: Right. If gays have harmonious relationships, that’s certainly better than fighting. That, of course, is true. And there is no reason why everybody has to follow the Buddhist ethics.
So, the question is: what is a destructive action? A destructive action is one that brings about suffering. This gets into… I don’t know about suffering, but limitations. For example, they say that a more fortunate rebirth is to be reborn as a man rather than as a woman. This is not because there is something inherently wrong with women; it’s because women face more restrictions and limitations from society than men do. Nobody’s saying that that that is correct, but women do have more obstacles to overcome. This was particularly true in the times when the Buddha lived. There was the danger of being raped and so on – like if they were doing retreat by themselves somewhere in a cave or something like that.
Now, we could say that, similarly, homosexuals face more problems than heterosexuals because of the prejudice of society. I think we could say that. Whether or not that suffering is a ripening of karma… well, any suffering has to be the ripening of karma. It’s hard to dissociate that. But does it have a direct relationship with being gay? I don’t think so because, from a karmic point of view, we don’t have instant karma. So, the discussion becomes very difficult. Very, very difficult.
I think we have to have a sexual ethic for people who are not married or who don’t marry until later in life. Does that mean that it’s destructive for them to masturbate but that it’s perfectly OK for them to go to a prostitute? That seems a bit strange. Now, I once asked a master in Thailand about inappropriate sexual behavior. His opinion was that most of the restrictions (and in the Theravada tradition, the only restriction is going with somebody else’s partner) had to do with keeping the society within a village free of conflicts,. For example, if a man went with somebody else’s wife and a child was produced and so on, it could become a big problem. Obviously, in those days, there wasn’t contraception. So, it was in order to preserve harmony within a village society that these things were instituted. On the other hand, prostitution was perfectly accepted within the society. That seemed to be OK. And there didn’t seem to be any consideration for the wife if the husband went off with a prostitute.
Now, to say that that wife didn’t suffer, wasn’t unhappy… I don’t know. In that society, was it perfectly accepted, and therefore the wives didn’t care if their husbands went off? I don’t know. That’s hard to say.
Participant: I think they did care.
Dr Berzin: Well, but is that just a projection of your own values onto them? I don’t know. It does depend on the view of marriage, doesn’t it?
Participant: Because, also, family resources are spent. It’s never favorably looked upon.
Dr Berzin: Well, this is the argument. Is it never favorably looked upon by the wife when the husband goes off with the prostitute? I think that would be a difficult thing to prove or disprove. From a Western, psychological point of view, we would say that, for sure, the woman suffers. There’s no argument against that. However, in a society in which that was perfectly accepted and normal, did the women suffer? We are not talking about a modern woman. We are talking about somebody who lived two thousand years ago in Asia. Was it acceptable or not? I don’t know. How could we know?
Participant: I think in general, with these issues, Buddhism tends to care more about long-term suffering.
Dr Berzin: Right. Absolutely. It’s talking about long-term suffering and not short-term.
Participant: In a way, it’s right because if you want to extinguish suffering completely, but you only look at the immediate effects of your actions, you are not necessarily going to extinguish suffering in the longer-term. But I guess you have to look at both, no?
Dr Berzin: Well, one looks at the short-term and long-term consequences of one’s actions. Of primary concern are the long-term consequences of the habits that are built up on our mental continuums that continue into future lives.
Now, if we want to gain liberation, we have to overcome biology. Biology is samsara, so that means celibacy. Then we have the whole discussion that comes up in the Mahayana – can we achieve liberation or enlightenment without being a celibate monk? And we have the Vimalakirti Nirdesha Sutra and Vimalakirti. This was a very, very early Mahayana sutra, one of the earliest, that says a lay bodhisattva can achieve liberation and enlightenment.
Participant: What is this sutra? What’s the name?
Dr Berzin: Vimalakirti.
Participant: Who wrote it?
Dr Berzin: It’s a sutra, so, it’s supposedly from Buddha. There are translations of it. Bob Thurman translated it into English. In it, Vimalakirti makes a lot of fun of the arhats – the monk arhats. It’s a very satirical type of thing. I think he changes one of the monks – or maybe it was Shariputra – into a woman, and has a great laugh at that.
Participant: With this men and women issue, I get the impression that it’s more about protecting the possessions that men are entitled to – namely, their women – from other men. That’s why it would be OK to go to a prostitute but not okay to go with somebody else’s partner.
Dr Berzin: And it’s not okay to go to somebody else’s prostitute. That also is in line with what you say. What you say is a good point.
Participant: Like valuing somebody’s possession.
Dr Berzin: Right. It is in the category of taking what was not given.
Participant: It’s not that I like that view upon it, but that’s what it looks like.
Dr Berzin: It seems to be in that vein – taking a partner that was not given. So, going with a prostitute is OK so long as you pay for the prostitute. If you take somebody else’s prostitute without paying, that’s inappropriate. It says that very specifically.
Let’s try to finish this thing.
An unwise manner, place, or time refers to inappropriate sexual activity even with our own partner.
Unwise Manner
The first of these, unwise manner, would be oral sex, anal sex, and these types of things; weird methods, postures, and devices; violent methods that inflict pain; having sex on a cold wet ground where people are going to get sick and these types of things. What also can be included here is having sex, knowing that you’re going to transmit a disease or that you’re going to get a disease from the other person.
Unwise Place
Unwise places are a shrine room, a prayer hall, next to a stupa, in front of our spiritual master, our parents, in a crowd of people, or in front of a painting or statue of a Buddha. So, if we live only in one room and it has a Buddha painting or something like that… That’s why they have curtains on the thangkas. You put the curtain down so they won’t see! That’s sort of cute..
Participant: Turning off the light.
Dr Berzin: Turning off the light, well… Or they put a cloth over the statue or something like that. It also says that even if we’re just sleeping in the same room as our teacher, it would be polite to place a curtain or a divider between the teacher’s bed and our own. I don’t know. I think that’s pretty far-fetched.
Unwise Time
Unwise times include when we or our partner have taken one-day vows of celibacy, when either partner has a sickness, when the woman is menstruating, when she is in the final months of pregnancy, or when she is nursing a baby at her breast. So, we can’t have sex while the baby is there. That’s pretty weird. Does that mean that for the whole two or three years that Asians nurse their babies, they shouldn’t have sex? They have babies every year, so this becomes quite difficult.
What is also an inappropriate time is to make love an excessive number of times in a row – that’s five times in a row. That’s pretty weird – that four times is OK but five times is not. Also included here is “shamelessly during the day.” That one was added very late, actually. Only toward the end of the first millennium was having sex during the day thrown in there. So, what happens if you work all night and you are married? This becomes a little bit difficult as well. But I think that having sex in the daytime could be considered shameless because you could be seen by other people or because somebody could inadvertently walk into your room. Tibetans and Indians don’t have the custom of locking doors. I shouldn’t say that because when Tibetans leave the house, they lock the door. But Tibetans don’t knock. They really don’t. They just walk in. So, one has to be a little bit careful there.
Motivating Mental Framework – Unmistaken Distinguishing, Motivating Intention, Motivating Emotion
It’s important that when the urge arises to engage in a sexual act with somebody else’s partner, for example,, we correctly distinguish that this is somebody else’s partner. Then there is a whole legal discussion of what happens when we don’t recognize that it’s somebody else’s partner. And what happens if a nun is raped? This is in one of the vinayas. It’s a big issue. Is she committing inappropriate sexual behavior by having sex with somebody? It says that it only becomes a destructive action for the nun if she enjoys it, if she develops desire during the act. If the nun doesn’t develop desire during the act – she was just was horrified during the whole thing – then she has not committed a destructive action.
Participant: It’s better for the nun to enjoy it and not to suffer throughout the whole thing.
Dr Berzin: Well, that’s a very difficult issue. It comes in Western law as well, doesn’t it? If they actually get into and enjoy the sexual act – does that make any difference?
Participant: No. It’s not a matter of law because feelings don’t come into the deed that has been committed.
Dr Berzin: The victim’s feelings don’t come into the deed?
Participant: It may be of some relevancy. There may be a discussion about whether or not she resisted – if she agreed or not. If she consented.
Dr Berzin: Right.
Participant: This might be a positive for the one who is committing the rape. But whether or not she felt joy during the act or felt happy afterwards doesn’t matter. It only matters if it can be proved that she consented. If she did, the person would not be guilty of raping her.
Dr Berzin: So, if there is consent, then it is not a rape. I have an example in my family. There was one cousin who was raped. She consented to it, saying to the guy that if he used a condom, she wouldn’t resist him.
Participant: But he was tried?
Dr Berzin: I don’t know. I don’t think he was ever caught.
Participant: I’m not a legal expert in penal law, but as far as I know, if there is consent, almost nothing is suitable for trial except for killing somebody. You can be found guilty even if the other person has consented to be killed by you. This is one exception. But if you consent, for example, to any kind of medical procedure and you get hurt, there’s no penalty against that. You cannot sue your doctor for that.
Dr Berzin: So, if you give consent for a doctor to operate on you, then by law, at least in Germany, even if they mess up – what they call in America “malpractice” – and make a mistake, you can’t sue them.
Participant: Malpractice is something different.
Dr Berzin: Malpractice is something different… Anyway, let’s not get into a big legal discussion because it’s already nine o’clock.
OK. So, we have to know that the partner belongs to somebody else. Likewise, we have to fully intend to engage this person in a sexual act; there has to be the intention there. And although inappropriate sexual behavior is usually brought on by desire, it can also be brought on by hostility, like when raping the wives and daughters of an enemy. It could also be brought on by naivety, like when thinking that the sexual union is a high spiritual practice or that it is chic and perfectly harmless to have an affair with a married person. Of course, if we are someone with vows of celibacy – a monk or a nun – then it is an inappropriate action no matter what. Whether our recognition is mistaken or not, it is still a negative act.
Implementation of a Method; Finale
The action has to be the meeting of the two sexual organs. So, with this point, if you have somebody else commit the sexual act for you – for instance, a general ordering his soldiers to rape the wives of the enemy – that’s not the same. That’s because the act reaches its completion when you experience the bliss of orgasm. So, if you have somebody else commit the sexual act, you don’t experience the orgasm at the end. Also, having sex, whether appropriate or inappropriate, has to be contemporaneously motivated by desire and attachment. So, from the point of view of both the motivating emotion and the finale, the action is not complete.
So, that’s the discussion of inappropriate sexual behavior as we find it in the text. And that brings us to the end of the class. We can continue next time with the discussion of the destructive actions of speech and mind.