LTF 17: Factors Affecting the Ripening of Karma & the Certainty of Ripening

Recall that the karmic impulse in any action of body, speech or mind is the mental factor of an urging that prods the mind to initiate, carry out and conclude committing an action. Once the method implemented for causing the action to take place has stopped being implemented, the karmic impulse gives rise to a karmic potential and tendency.

Karmic potentials and tendencies give rise to three kinds of karmic results: 

• There is what’s called the ripened result, which refers to the unspecified members of the five aggregate factors of the rebirth state into which we are born – so, the basic body and mind, as well as the range of feelings, intelligence and so on that are specific to the life form with which we are born. The ripened result does not include the constructive and destructive mental factors of this rebirth state, such as love and anger. 

• Then there are results that correspond to their cause. These are of two types: (1) results that corresponds to their cause in our instinctive behavior – in other words, instinctively repeating types of behavior that we did in the past; (2) results that correspond to their cause in our experience – in other words, experiencing something similar to what we did to others in the past. 

• Then there is the comprehensive result, which is a result that usually affects the environment, the situation of the larger domain in which we live. In other words, it could affect the country that we are born into. For example, if we have been very much involved in stealing from others, we could be reborn in a place that is very poor (which is a result that is shared by a lot of people). The comprehensive result could also affect our possessions – for example, anything that we buy breaks almost immediately or any new clothing that we buy tears or gets ruined. So, we are not able to actually enjoy our possessions; we lose them. 

So, there are these three types of results; however, because one of them is divided into two, there are actually four.

When we speak about ripened results, there are some karmic potentials and tendencies that have certainty as to the lifetime in which they will begin to ripen and some with no certainty regarding in which lifetime this will begin to happen. I say “begin” to ripen because karmic potentials and tendencies can continue to give ripened results over many lifetimes. As for those with certainty of when they will start to give ripened results, there are three possibilities:

• There are certain actions, the results of which we are certain to begin to experience in this lifetime. 
• There are certain actions whose results we are certain to begin to experience in our next lifetime.
• There are other actions whose results we are certain to begin to experience in a specific number of lifetimes after our next one.

Also, I should mention that ripened results also include the levels of happiness or unhappiness with which we experience each moment of our rebirth. Obviously, we could experience any level of happiness or unhappiness while experiencing anything that happens during a lifetime.

There’s one further point. When we speak about karmic potentials that ripen in a future lifetime, these are karmic potentials that get activated at the time of death so that they give rise to karmic impulses. For any rebirth, there are two types that arise: one throwing karmic impulse and several completing karmic impulses. A throwing karmic impulse (‘phen-byed-kyi las) throws the mental continuum into the next rebirth and ripens into the aggregates of the life form of that rebirth state. The karmic impulse that gave rise to the potential that gave rise to this throwing karmic impulse was one for an action, either constructive or destructive, that was motivated by a strong intention and emotion. Then there are what are known as completing karmic impulses (rdzogs-byed-kyi las) that also ripen together with the throwing karmic impulse. They complete the circumstances of a rebirth. The karmic impulses that gave rise to the potentials that gave rise to them were for actions, either constructive or destructive, that were motivated by a relatively weak intention and emotion. 

These, then, are the karmic impulses with certainty as to when they will begin to give rise to ripened results. They are of three types: karmic impulses that begin to ripen in this lifetime, those that begin to ripen in the next lifetime, and those that begin to ripen in a specific number of lifetimes after the next one. 

Later, we’ll go into a discussion of karma that has no certainty as to when it will begin to ripen. But first, we need to get some idea of the classifications here. And for simplicity’s sake, we’ll speak in terms of actions rather than the karmic impulses that bring them on and karma ripening rather than karmic potentials ripening.

Karma That Begins to Ripen in this Lifetime

Asanga points out eight types of karmic actions whose results we are certain to begin to experience in this lifetime. These ripened results, obviously, will not include a change in our life form. But they will include levels of happiness or unhappiness, and along with this will be results that correspond to their cause in our actions and behavior and comprehensive results. 

The Eight Types of Actions

The first of these is:

[1] Destructive actions brought on by thoughts of strong regard for our body, possessions, or our compulsive existence in general. 

In other words, we are extremely attached to our body or our possessions – our computer, our car, whatever, or our general, samsaric life – and we value it in a sort of neurotic, disturbing type of way: “Ha! I have to have this. I have to keep this.” Then we commit a destructive action, which can be any type of destructive action, that is brought on by such thoughts.

The second one is:

[2] Constructive actions brought on by thoughts of strong disregard for our body, possessions, or samsaric existence. 

In other words, we could have disregard for our body being damaged or burned or even our lives being lost, like if we run into a burning house to save some children who are stuck inside.  Strong regard for our body and these things would be, “You insulted me,” or “You banged into my car and dented the fender, so I am going to shoot you.” These types of things. 

The third one:

[3] Destructive actions brought on by strong ill-will toward any limited being. 

Ill-will is like malice. Remember, we had thinking with malice as one of the destructive actions of mind with which we not only wish harm to somebody else, we also plan how to harm them and make the full decision to do it. So, when somebody plans, “How are we going to make a war against our enemy?” and they think this through with extreme hatred, plotting out in detail how they are going to exterminate everybody in the concentration camps or this sort of thing – that would be an example of this type of action. 

The fourth one:

[4] Constructive actions brought on by strong benevolence and compassion toward any sentient being. 

It says in the text that actions that are brought on by strong thoughts of compassion and the wish to help others can be – just as in the previous one, actions brought on by strong thoughts of malice – toward any limited being. So, it could be just toward one person. 

The fifth one:

[5] Destructive actions brought on by strong belligerence toward the Triple Gem, our gurus, or our parents. 

So, we’re going to go destroy all the stupas, or we are going to shoot the gurus or our parents, motivated by very strong aggressive thoughts to harm them. Remember, when we are speaking about thoughts here, it’s not just the thought; it’s not just the wish. It’s the action of thinking – plotting it out and then, making a firm decision to do it. 

The sixth one:

[6] Constructive actions brought on by strong thoughts of respectful belief and firm conviction in the good qualities of the Triple Gem, our gurus, our parents, other teachers and so on. 

So, here, we have very strong belief in the good qualities of the Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha, of the spiritual teachers and so on, and we have great confidence in them and admiration for them, and we do something to actually help them – like helping the great lamas to teach in the West, helping to make the arrangements for them, helping to set up one of these large teachings, for instance, by His Holiness, participating in the planning committee and in the activities of arranging it and so on. I think those are good examples of this type of action that we will begin to experience the results of in this lifetime.

The seventh one:

[7] Destructive actions brought on by strong thoughts of ingratitude with which we go against or try to hurt those who have helped us the most. 

That would be particularly toward our parents, our gurus, and these types of beings who have helped us very much. We have no sense of gratitude; instead, we have negative thoughts toward them, and we do something destructive toward them, like cheating them or whatever it might be. 

The eighth one:

[8] Extremely strong constructive actions brought on by thoughts of gratitude and wishing to repay those who have helped us the most. 

We have tremendous gratitude, whether it’s toward our parents, our teachers or whoever might have helped us the most, and we do something constructive to show our gratitude and appreciation, whatever that might be. It could be doing anything that is helpful for them. This type of action is one that we will begin to experience the results of in this lifetime.

So, these are the eight actions whose results we are certain to begin experiencing in this lifetime. Any questions? 

I think this is a helpful list to have because if we are having difficulties in this lifetime… obviously, it is not the greatest to have attachment to the good results of our actions and to do them just so that things will go better in this life. That, obviously, indicates a tremendous amount of grasping and so on and a lack of understanding the voidness of cause and effect. Nevertheless, if we try to do very strong positive actions like the ones that are mentioned here, it can be very, very helpful. 

Karma That Begins to Ripen in the Next Lifetime 

Karma that has certainty of beginning to ripen in our next lifetime refers to the five heinous crimes: killing our mother, father, an arhat, causing a division within the sangha and, with ill intent, causing a Buddha to bleed.

Karma That Begins to Ripen in a Specific Number of Lifetimes after the Next One 

Then there is karma that is certain to begin to ripen in a specific number of lifetimes after the next rebirth – for instance, in a specific lifetime when we are finally reborn as a human after having experienced the results of one of the five heinous crimes starting in our immediate next lifetime and lasting a certain number of lifetimes.

In order to really understand the points that are being made here, we need to understand what we mean by “motivation.” Motivation, depending on which textual tradition we follow, has several aspects to it. In the context of a pathway of karma – more specifically, a pathway of a karmic impulse – motivation has two main aspects. We talked about these in our discussions of the motivating mental framework, one of the four factors that determines the completeness of a karmic pathway. One aspect is the accompanying motivating intention, and the other is the accompanying motivating emotion. Both of these accompany the karmic impulse that gets us into the action. The motivating intention, or aim, is what we mean to accomplish by committing the action – “I intend to kill you,” or “I intend to save your life.” So, we have a specific aim motivating us. The accompanying motivating emotion is the emotional component that motivates us. It’s the emotional reason, we could say, for committing the action. In these examples, the emotion would be great attachment, great love and compassion, or great anger and so on.  

Now, there is a big problem that comes up in this whole discussion, I must say, that is not very easy to come to a clear decision about because there seem to be various opinions concerning it. The problem is whether an action done with no motivation – in other words, without intention, such as killing somebody unintentionally – has karmic results or not. It’s a question because there is a big discussion about certain actions that do not have certainty concerning when we would experience their results. Now, how do we understand that? Does it mean that maybe we won’t experience their results at all? If that were the case, it would contradict one of the laws of karma, which is that once an action has been committed, there will be results, and the results will not just go away by themselves. 

So, there are two understandings of karma having no certainty about their ripening. There are karmic actions having no certainty about when their results will begin to ripen. Both Hinayana and Mahayana accept this type of karma. And then there are karmic actions having no certainty of their ripening at all. Only Mahayana asserts these, and they refer to karmic potentials that have been purified away.

In other words, according to Mahayana, the only way not to experience karmic results is through the four opponent powers and the understanding of voidness and so on. Hinayana says that there is no way we won’t meet with the karmic results: they have to be experienced, although they could be experienced in very trivial way at the very end of one’s samsaric existence. So, are there any actions that are together with confusion – so-called tainted actions – that are not karmic? 

If we look more closely at the definitions of what constructive and destructive actions are in Vasubandhu and Asanga’s lists, we see that certain types of actions simply perpetuate samsara – that an action can be destructive just by the nature of samsara. In other words, they could result in our experiencing the third type of suffering, the all-pervasive suffering. It’s an interesting point, now that I think about it, because the third type of suffering – His Holiness explained this quite well in Brussels just recently – is the suffering of having the types of aggregates that we have, aggregates that come from confusion, or ignorance. They are accompanied in every moment by ignorance, unless we are in a state of total non-conceptual absorption on voidness, and they perpetuate our ignorance unless we are arhats. For Vasubandhu and Asanga, ignorance is an anti-knowing mental factor. It stupefies the mind, disabling it from knowing accurately and decisively the sixteen aspects of the four noble truths. For Dharmakirti and Madhyamaka, ignorance is misknowing those sixteen aspects by holding a distorted view.

His Holiness explained that the way to get rid of that third type of suffering is to stop rebirth, rebirth as described in the twelve links of dependent arising, by getting rid of craving (thirsting) and the obtainer attitude, which is basically identifying with the object of craving. We have to get rid of those. Craving, as you might recall, refers to feelings of happiness – craving for the feeling of happiness not to stop, and when we have a feeling of unhappiness, craving for it to stop. So, what we want to work on is not to have this craving when we have happiness or unhappiness. And the obtainer attitude is the deluded outlook that identifies the solid “me” that wants for the happiness to continue or for the unhappiness to stop. We can stop it there. 

So, what causes samsara to perpetuate? That’s the interesting thing because it seemed to me, in an analysis that I did, that unintentional actions might not result in gross suffering but that they would at least perpetuate samsara – for instance, when we eat. When we eat, we are necessarily going to kill things that are in the food. Or when we walk on the ground, we’re necessarily going to kill things that are on the ground. Now, does that produce suffering? I don’t think that we could say that this produces the suffering of unhappiness in general, the first of the three types of suffering, the suffering of suffering. However, I think we could say that, at the very least, it perpetuates samsara. This is a topic that really needs to be investigated quite carefully 

Some geshes that I’ve asked have said that even if an action is unintentional, it’s still a karmic action – that there isn’t any action that we do that is not going to have a karmic result as long as it is a tainted action (tainted, meaning something that derives from or is related to a disturbing emotion or attitude). It might not have very much of a result, but it will have some sort of result; otherwise, it would contradict the law of cause and effect. 

Actions, of course, can have many different kinds of results, not just karmic ones. If I walk on the ground, one of the results is that I get from here to there. So, obviously, it has result. Is that a karmic result? Certainly not. That’s just a physical result of walking from here to there. So, all of this is actually quite difficult to straighten out. But, in any case, there are certain criteria for determining whether or not the karmic aftermath of an action has certainty of ripening. 

The way it was explained it to me by one geshe, Geshe Dawa, who is now the abbot of Namgyal Monastery, His Holiness’s monastery, and who was the teacher of the monks at Nechung Monastery for decades (so, he’s really very learned), was that it means that there is no certainty of when the karma ripens. In other words, it is not in any of the three categories. So, what does that mean? It can’t mean that it could ripen at any time – in this lifetime, the next lifetime, or some future lifetime after that. I didn’t really have enough presence of mind to pursue what that actually meant – that there is no certainty as to the time. In any case, I think that if there is no certainty as to the time, it would certainly ripen into something very minor. And certainly, it is very unlikely that it would ripen in this lifetime. 

Participant: What is the difference between a result, a man-made result, and a karmic result?

Dr Berzin: There are many, many different types of results. I don’t remember the entire list that’s in the abhidharma, but a karmic result is what we experience when karmic aftermath – the karmic tendencies and potentials and various constant karmic habits that are planted on and carried along with the mental continuum – is activated and ripens. The karmic aftermath is activated and ripened by craving and all these sorts of things. So, there’s this long-term process. A man-made result, on the other hand, is like when you stick your finger in a fire and you get burned. That’s just a physical type of result. 

Participant: You also form habits like going to work or taking the U-Bahn. Every morning you walk the same way. After a year, you just go automatically. It’s a habit, but it’s not…

Dr Berzin: It’s not a karmic habit. That’s a very good point. We build up habits like going to work by a certain a route every day. Is that a karmic habit? It’s certainly a habit, but is it a karmic habit? That’s a very good question. I don’t think we could say that’s a karmic habit as such, but it certainly is what we, in the West, would call a “habit.” I don’t know what we would call that in Tibetan. Probably, it’s the same word as habit because that word is used for so many general things – bag-chags in Tibetan. Maybe; maybe not. I’m thinking of how we would describe it in Tibetan. I think we would use the word “familiarity” – being so familiar with something that we repeat it. We want to build up familiarity in meditation. What is the word for “meditation”? The word for “meditation” comes from the word meaning “to build up a beneficial habit,” which we do by repeating it. So, I think it would fall into the category of a familiarization that causes us to repeat an action, as opposed to a karmic habit. Obviously, the result is the repetition of something. 

Participant: Yeah, but it could also be like making tea.

Dr Berzin: Right. Well, you see, there are constructive actions, destructive actions, and unspecified ones, like making tea, which is neither constructive nor destructive. All of those are karmic actions. We’d have to say that the unspecified ones, if they are accompanied by unawareness – which, obviously, they all are in our case – are karmic actions. 

Now, I must say that I’ve never seen any explanation of the analysis of how you experience the results of these unspecified actions because they don’t have a strong motivation. The texts just speak of the results of destructive and constructive actions. If an action has either a disturbing emotion or a positive emotion as the motivating emotion, then that’s something. However, if you make tea just so that you have food to eat and can then go to work or something like that, or if you take this particular route… well, you could take this particular route because you are attached to the pretty sights along the way, or you could take it just because it is convenient. So, the motivating emotion, even if the action itself is not particularly constructive or destructive, is a factor here. 

Once you start to get into the topic of karma, it very quickly becomes very, very complicated. Are there certain destructive actions that are destructive by nature, or are they only made destructive by the motivation? We have what are called naturally destructive actions, like killing. Then we have others that are not naturally destructive but that are specified as something that we want to avoid – for instance, eating after noon if we’re a monk or nun. Then there comes a big discussion of what really makes a certain action a naturally destructive action. These aren’t easy to determine, and there are a lot of different opinions on it. But I think that the example that you are using is one we’d have to classify as a familiarity that causes us to repeat something as opposed to a karmic habit, the seeds of which were planted on your mental continuum and are ripening now.

Participant: Where is the point where you say that this plants a seed? Plants a seed that you automatically…

Participant: How is it, for example, when you learn something? Maybe that’s also a good example. 

Dr Berzin: Well, there are different types of habits. This word bag-chags (habit) is also used to describe memory. Now, this gets into a very interesting discussion of how it is that one remembers things. Are there bag-chags there? I don’t know what word we would use, but a habit (because they use the same word, “habit”) allows us to remember something later and to remember it many times, like remembering something we’ve learned or remembering something that happened to us in our lives. That, they would call a bag-chags. Now, is that a karmic action? No, because simply remembering something is neither destructive nor constructive. 

Participant: It depends on the subject of the thing that you learned.

Dr Berzin: The subject of the thing that you learned? The learning aspect of it could have been motivated by a constructive or destructive emotion, but the actual content of it and remembering the content of it is not affected by the motivation. I think. I don’t know. I have never analyzed this before. I am just analyzing it now as we’re speaking. If we remember seven times nine, which doesn’t upset us, that’s one thing. But when we remember a traumatic experience and it upsets us and causes suffering, that’s something else.

Anyway, let’s take a look at this material. As you can see, one could really spend a lot of time analyzing and debating this. Of course, you are going to find slightly different explanations in the Theravada literature, the Vaibhashika literature, which would be the Hinayana school within Sarvastivada that the Tibetans study. Then there’s the Mahayana literature in terms of Asanga and his works, which are basically Chittamatra. So, you find different analyses. And even within the texts of Asanga – he wrote many different texts – you find different explanations. And in the various texts by Vasubandhu – he also wrote many different texts, not just the Abhidharmakosha – you also find different explanations regarding various points. So, that becomes difficult. What I’ve tried to do in this analysis is to put together information from all of these various texts that the Tibetans study because a lot of the information is not contradictory; they just have different listings of things. Some lists include more things, and some lists leave out certain things. Anyway, let’s go on.

Vasubandhu’s Presentation – The Five Types of Actions We Are Certain to Begin Experiencing the Results of within a Certain Time Frame

Now we are talking about whether or not there is certainty concerning the time frame in which we would experience the results. Vasubandhu said that there are five types of actions that have certainty concerning the time frame in which we would begin experiencing the results: 

[1] Constructive actions motivated by a strong, clear-headed belief in fact. 

[2] Destructive actions motivated by strong disturbing emotion or attitude. 

[3] Constructive or destructive actions, whether or not they are strongly motivated by disturbing emotions or clear-headed belief, or done repeatedly, that are directed at the Triple Gem, at arhats, or at those who are absorbed either in meditation on love or in meditation states that are very deeply absorbed and very subtle. 

So, it doesn’t matter what the motivation is – whether it is strongly motivated or not. 

[4] Constructive and destructive actions done repeatedly. 

[5] Taking the lives of one’s parents, regardless of the motivation.

So, it doesn’t matter if we take their lives with a compassionate motivation, such as with euthanasia. The action is still destructive.

Vasubandhu says that regardless of which three categories these five actions are going to fall into – ripening in this lifetime, our next lifetime or a specific number of lifetimes after that –we are certain to experience their results in that lifetime. Then he says, “All other constructive or destructive actions have no certainty concerning the time frame of experiencing their results, although the results will definitely be experienced at some time.” Because Vasubandhu is a Hinayana system, he says the results have to be experienced at some point or another. In Hinayana, there is no purification process. 

Asanga’s Presentation – Enacted and Reinforced Karmic Impulses

Asanga gives a much more complex analysis for determining whether or not a karmic action has certainty concerning the time frame for experiencing its results. This comes from two different variables that he explains in different texts. But in order to understand these, we need to discuss them in terms of the karmic impulses that bring the action on rather than the action itself. 

Remember, we discussed karmic impulses somewhat when we introduced the topic of pathways of karma. Just to repeat, a pathway of karma is talking about a pathway of a karmic impulse (las-lam). In Asanga’s system, karma (las) is exclusively a mental factor, a mental urge (sems-pa), or impulse. A mental urge is what prods the mind into initiating, carrying out and concluding an action of the body, speech or mind. So, we could say that karma is the compelling urge that drives our behavior. The pathway, again, is the action, whether physical, verbal or mental, that the urge draws our mind into and prods it along.

For physical and verbal actions, there are two kinds of karmic impulses that are usually, though not always, involved in bringing a physical or verbal action on. These have to do with the two phases that are usually involved in a physical or verbal action – a causal phase when the urge that arises would be to think to do or say something and a contemporaneous phase when the urge that arises would be to actually do or say what we had thought to do or say. Though there is much more to say about these two types of karmic impulses, just having this brief explanation should help us to understand the two variables that we will be discussing. And just to be clear, though the two variables we will be talking about are related to these two types of karmic impulses, they concern a different aspect of them – namely, the certainty or uncertainty of the time frame in which the karmic potentials they build up begin to ripen.

One variable is whether the karmic impulse for an action has been enacted (byas-pa). The other has to do with whether the karmic impulse for the action has been reinforced (bsags-pa). 

Again, learning about these gives us some idea of the certainty – or uncertainty – of when we would begin to experience the results of our actions. These are especially helpful to learn about if we are prone to feeling guilty about certain destructive actions that we have done. Maybe there won’t be so much certainty about when we would experience the results.

A karmic impulse that has been enacted is one for any physical or verbal action that has caused the proper execution of the action – in other words, a method has been implemented to cause the action to occur, and implicit is that action has reached its intended finale. Whether or not a karmic impulse has been enacted is one of the criteria regarding certainty. 

The other criterion is whether or not the karmic impulse was reinforced. A reinforced karmic impulse is one for any physical or verbal action whose karmic potential has been strengthened by having deliberated the action for a long time beforehand. To deliberate, here, means thinking the action over for a long time before doing it and deciding to do it. So, if we didn’t deliberate the action beforehand and decide to do it, the karmic impulse for the action is not reinforced. In that case, there is no certainty as to when we would experience the result.

However, as Gyaltsab Je explains in his commentary to Asanga’s texts, if we deliberate an action for a long time beforehand but don’t actually commit it, we still build up a strengthened karmic potential for a reinforced karmic impulse for the action to arise. So, if a karmic impulse for that action arises in the future, it will be a reinforced karmic impulse, and there will, depending on certain other factors, be certainty as to the lifetime in which its karmic potential begins to ripen. 

We have here four possibilities. I’ll give some examples so that we have some idea of what we are talking about. 

One possibility is that the karmic impulse is both enacted and reinforced – for example, a premeditated murder. We deliberated and decided beforehand to kill the person, and we committed the killing. 

Another possibility is that an impulse is enacted but not reinforced – in other words, we do or say something without having thought much, if at all, about it beforehand. An example would be dancing with someone and stepping on their foot by accident. 

A third possibility is that the impulse is reinforced but not enacted. We could, for example, deliberate, “When I see this person, I am going to really yell at them, and I am going to tell them this and this and this.” But when we actually see them, they could apologize, and we don’t actually say what we had decided to say to them. 

The point, here, of deliberation, is whether or not we thought over committing the action and decided to do it. Did we plan to steal something? Or was it just that when we were there, it just sort of happened? Or we have inappropriate sex with someone: “I didn’t plan to have sex with this person, but when I was with them, it sort of just happened.” That, I think, is a common example. Or we could have planned: “When I see this person, we are going to do this and this and this,” and then we have sex with them. That’s the distinction that is being discussed here. 

The fourth possibility is that a karmic impulse is neither enacted nor reinforced. What could this be? An example would be starting to act on a spur-of-the-moment impulse to smash and kill a mosquito that has landed on our hand but that flies away before we can kill it. 

Ten Actions Brought on by Karmic Impulses That Are Not Reinforced 

I have a list here from one of Asanga’s texts of ten types of karmic impulses for physical or verbal actions that are enacted but not reinforced. 

These are karmic impulses for actions:

[1] Done in dreams (mi-lam-du byas-pa) 

Technically, an action done in a dream is an action of the mind. But whether or not we consider it a physical, verbal or mental action, the impulse for it is not reinforced. 

[2] Done without understanding (mi-shes-par byas-pa) 

The Dalai Lama has given the example of a small child taking another child’s toy and playing with it. If the child doesn’t think that what it has taken is now their own, the karmic impulse for the destructive action of taking what was not given – in other words, stealing – is not reinforced. Nor is the pathway of karma complete since the act of stealing doesn’t reach its finale, which is thinking that what one has taken is now one’s own.

[3] Not done in accord with what we had thought to do (bsams-bzhin min-par byas-pa) 

An example would be thinking over and deciding to shoot a thief in order to stop him, not kill him; however, the thief dies from the wound.

[4] Done not repeatedly and without intensity – so, without a strong disturbing emotion accompanying it (drag-po min-la rgyun-chags-min-par byas-pa)

An example would be going fishing only once or twice in one’s life just for fun and to relax. I went fishing twice, I think, in my life when I was a kid. My uncle took me.  

[5] Done mistakenly (nor-bar byas-pa)

For example, we mistakenly killed our dog because it ate the poison we put out for the rats. 

[6] Done out of forgetfulness (brjed-pas byas-pa)

An example would be smacking and killing a mosquito on our hand, forgetting that we had taken a vow not to kill. So, when a mosquito suddenly lands on our hand, in that moment, we forget about the vow, and we smack and kill it.   

[7] Done while not wanting to do it (mi-’dod-bzhin-du byas-pa)

For example, our old dog is sick and is dying. Even though we wanted it to die a natural death, when we see how much it is suffering, we decide to have it put to sleep, despite not wanting to do it. 

[8] Done through some naturally unspecified action (rang-bzhin-gyis lung-ma-bstan-pa)

Walking, for example, is an unspecified action. But when we go for a walk, we inadvertently step on and kill small insects. An example of this is walking our dog without a leash and it is run over by a car. Just walking the dog is an unspecified action – it just led to that.

Participant: I know some people who are Christian who went out for a walk with their dog, and the dog got killed in an accident. The people said over and over, even after years, “I am guilty of this. I should have cared more.” Doesn’t this qualify as the karmic result and…

Dr Berzin: Well, this is something else. I wasn’t planning to go into it, but I did an analysis of all of these actions in terms of what their karmic results would be. Even though the karmic impulses for them are not reinforced – meaning that there is no certainty about the time frame in which the karmic potentials they built up begin to ripen – they nonetheless build up karmic potentials. 

Participant: The question was specifically whether the guilt itself is a type of ripening…

Dr Berzin: Is the guilt itself a ripened result? No, guilt is a destructive disturbing emotion, and ripened results are exclusively unspecified. On the other hand, is thinking with guilt a destructive karmic action? Well, thinking with guilt, “How terrible I am; how bad I am,” and so on – that’s accompanied by a disturbing emotion. That’s grasping onto a certain action that we did, identifying it as being bad, and not letting go of it. 

Participant: It must be destructive because it causes suffering.

Dr Berzin: Right. It causes suffering. But is it a destructive action? That’s an interesting question. First of all, I think we have to say that there are destructive actions that aren’t on this list of ten. I was trying to think in terms of the three types of destructive thinking and wondering which of the three this kind of guilt might be an example of. I don’t think it would be thinking with malice to think, “How bad I am. I’m going to punish myself. I should be harmed,” as in either I should harm myself or I should be harmed by somebody. That would merely be the wish for it. Thinking with malice – “I’m going to really hurt somebody” – involves a whole line of thinking about how we are going to hurt somebody or some being. The action is completed when we actually make that decision. For example, although we love dogs, we decide to punish ourself by not getting another dog. But we might punish ourselves unconsciously. We might not get another dog without making the decision to punish ourselves by not getting one. 

Participant: But you can also just suffer from that guilt. You think, “Oh, I should have cared better for that dog. Oh, I shouldn’t have…”  

Dr Berzin: Well, no. This is something else. Suffering and feeling unhappiness while experiencing guilt is a result of karmic actions done a long, long time ago. You could think, “Oh, I shouldn’t have taken the dog out,” and just feel regret. It’s not that feeling guilty caused the unhappiness. You’d have to say that the dog dying was the circumstance for experiencing the unhappiness. On the other hand, you could think, “I am guilty. I am responsible for the dog dying. But I am really very happy, actually, that the dog died because I didn’t like the dog. I’m happy to be rid of it. It barked all the time and kept me up at night.” 

Participant: Maybe it can weaken my aspiration for Buddhahood. Because of guilt, I can say, “Oh, I’m not allowed to do it anymore. I’m not allowed to try for that.” 

Dr Berzin: Ah, yes. That’s a distorted attitude. 

Participant: That’s denying that you have Buddha-nature and that it’s possible to attain Buddhahood.

Dr Berzin: Right. That’s distorted thinking.

Participant: But you still have the karmic result because it… 

Dr Berzin: It’s not the karmic result: it’s the circumstance. The dog dies while going for a walk. You’re walking the dog, and the dog just runs into the street and gets hit by a car. Having a distorted outlook, thinking with a distorted view, is something that we have built up – the tendency to do that – from many, many past lifetimes. Now, the question is: what is the circumstance that causes that tendency to ripen so that now I do something similar to what I did in the past, which is to think with a distorted outlook? The circumstance for that is the dog getting hit by a car. The dog getting hit by the car is not the karmic cause of it – that’s why you have to really analyze causes and conditions; it’s just the condition, the circumstance. The same thing with the unhappiness that you would feel. That comes from other karmic causes, other tendencies. 

It gets very complex because there are two types of results that run in parallel with each other. One is a result that corresponds to its cause in either our behavior or our experience. The other is whether you feel happy or unhappy when experiencing that result. So, these things run in parallel with each other. Then there are various events that occur that act as circumstances for experiencing those results. Then, too, there is the category of uncertainty as to when it would ripen – that it could ripen at any time. Anyway, it gets complicated, as I said. 

Participant: But can’t one say that always feeling guilty is a karmic…

Dr Berzin: It’s a karmic ripening. Always feeling guilty is a karmic ripening.

Participant: Because that’s a sort of habit – that every time something happens, we react with guilt. That is a sort of habit.

Dr Berzin: Yes. The distorted thinking that comes with guilt would be a karmic ripening of the habit of thinking like that many lifetimes ago. Now, habits… I mean tendencies, actually. Tendencies are what we are talking about here. The word “habit” is used for both tendencies and habits. There is actually a difference between the two but let’s not go into that. We’ll just use the word “habit” in a general sense. Habits can give their results in just one occurrence or in many occurrences. Regarding those things that could start to give their results in one lifetime but continue to do so in future lives as well, let’s take the example of, “May I be able to always meet with my spiritual teacher in all my lifetimes, His Holiness the Dalai Lama. May I be able to study with him and receive his teachings in all my lifetimes.” That would continue to ripen in many lifetimes, not just one.

The next one in the list is:

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

If we commit a destructive physical or verbal action and later regret it, the karmic impulse for that action is not reinforced.

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

In this case, the karmic impulse is not reinforced because, afterwards, we apply opponent forces such as Vajrasattva meditation or voidness meditation.

We could also give a similar list for constructive actions that are associated with delusion. For instance, if we commit a constructive action in our dreams, the karmic impulse for it would not be reinforced. 

The main criterion, then, for the karmic potential from a karmic impulse for an action to be reinforced is that the action has to be deliberated– in other words, thought about for a long time beforehand and decided upon. If it is not really deliberated, if we didn’t really think it out and decide to do it, then, just in general, we would say that the potential is not reinforced.

So, a karmic impulse for an action, a physical or verbal actions, could be enacted but not be reinforced, like intentionally killing someone but killing the wrong person by mistake. In that situation, there is no certainty concerning the time frame for experiencing its results. The only time when there is certainty of experiencing the results is when the karmic impulse has been enacted and reinforced. That seems to be the point. The action has to be deliberated, decided upon and committed – so, not be within any of these ten categories.

Participant: What is meant by “uncertainty about the time frame”? Does it mean that there’s no certainty whether it ripens in this life, the next life, or in some future life?

Dr Berzin: Well, that exactly was what I was questioning myself now. If there is no certainty about when it begins ripening, what does that actually mean?

Participant: And if there is certainty?

Dr Berzin: If there is certainty, it could ripen in this lifetime, the next lifetime or a specific one after that. If there is no certainty, does that mean it could ripen in any lifetime and, if so, what determines which lifetime it will ripen in? Does it just ripen into happiness and unhappiness, but not into a rebirth state? Maybe. I haven’t had a clear answer on this. These are very tough points, but I am just introducing you to the issues that are involved with karma. Karma is not easy. That’s why they say it’s the most difficult thing to understand – because there are so many factors that are involved. 

On the other hand, if the karmic impulse for the action was both enacted and reinforced, such as in a premeditated murder of somebody where the killer succeeds in killing the intended victim, there will be certainty concerning this time frame. Vasubandhu says that actions in this category have to, first of all, be deliberated; we have to have thought it out beforehand and decided to do. We also have to have committed the action; we have to have implemented a method to carry out the action, and the action had to have reached its intended finale. All of that has to be there. Then, too, there have to be no later regrets and no counteracting forces applied. Also, we have to rejoice in doing it, feel happy about doing it. 

Then, it needs to fall into one of the five types of actions that were mentioned earlier in Vasubandhu’s list, which, of course, includes constructive actions, not just destructive ones: (1) constructive actions motivated by strong belief in fact; (2)  destructive actions motivated by a strong disturbing emotion or attitude; (3) constructive or destructive actions directed at the Triple Gem, arhats, etc.; (4) constructive or destructive actions done repeatedly; and (5) taking the life of one’s parent. If the action falls into one of these categories, then there is certainty concerning the time frame in which we would experience the results. 

According to another of the laws of karma, if an action has not been committed, we won’t experience its results. So, if we intended to commit an action that we deliberated and decided to do, but then we don’t commit the action – such as planning to assassinate someone and then not carrying it out – we will not experience any results from killing, only results from deliberating to kill, which is the destructive action of thinking with malice. So, it’s a matter of what category actions fall into. 

Anyway, this is the basic type of material. It’s hard to just digest it like that without going through these lists. And even going through the lists, there is just so much detail that’s involved. I did quite an elaborate analysis of the ten actions to see what the results of actions like that would be – for instance, mistakenly killing the dog with poison intended for the rats. Although our wish to cause harm was not directed at the dog, the act of putting out the poison was motivated by a hostile intention to end a life. So, even if it didn’t kill anybody, we still committed a destructive action of the mind. So, one has to see what type of destructive action it is and what the result would be. 

Participant: For instance, you have pests. You want to kill them, but it gives you a really bad feeling. You think, “The bugs are dangerous, so I have to kill them. I don’t like to kill these bugs, but I have to. Otherwise, people will suffer.”

Dr Berzin: Right. So, this gets into another category of, for example, killing the insects in the fields in order to save the crops. We could do it with the motivation of wanting to save the crops so that they will feed people. On the other hand, we could do it with the motivation of wanting to make more money, in which case, it gets into these categories: we aimed to kill them, and we deliberated about it – we figured out how to do it, decided to do it and then did it. We didn’t do it in a dream or unknowingly – not really knowing what we were doing. We knew what we were doing. 

Then comes the next big list, which I was going to do next time, which is of the factors that affect how heavy the ripening is going to be. If you regret having to do something and you don’t feel happy about it, the result is less heavy. If you feel happy about it, it makes it heavier. Now, the question is guilt. If you feel guilty about it, does that make it heavier or not? I think that’s an interesting question. I think that guilt here – I’m just speaking off the top of my head – might come into the category of regret. But then, on top of the regret, you add, “I am a bad person.” So, you add incorrect thinking, basically, to that. 

You see, the disturbing emotions themselves don’t ripen into happiness or unhappiness. You have to think with them or act with them. It’s the karmic potentials built up by the actions we do that ripen into happiness or unhappiness. But then, how can you have a disturbing emotion or guilt without actually thinking with guilt? We say that we “feel” guilt, but it’s a way of thinking, isn’t it? 

Participant: But also, we can be unhappy that we have to kill these pests. 

Dr Berzin: Exactly. Feeling unhappy about it makes the results less heavy. There is whole list of criteria. What you want to do, then, is know what will make it less heavy so that the results will be not so strong and to try to somehow have them not be in this category of a certainty of time. But it’s hard with this example of killing the insects in the field because you certainly intend to kill them, and you certainly plan it.

Participant: And in a way, I think that there must also be some thought like, “OK. Now I killed them. Now it’s clean. Now it’s safe.” So, you have a sort of relief or…

Dr Berzin: Well, there’s a rejoicing. 

Participant: Yeah, in a way.

Dr Berzin: Well, again, what’s the object of the rejoicing? Do we rejoice that the crop was saved? Or are we rejoicing that “I killed the bastards”? If you rejoice in the killing, then that makes it heavier. If you rejoice in the fact that now people can have the food – that’s positive.

Participant: And what if you do nothing because you have fear that you will have some karmic results from killing the bugs, the bacteria that you have to kill?

Dr Berzin: Right. This is a very interesting point. What happens when you could kill the insects in order to be able to kill germs or something like that, but you don’t? Let’s say your child is dying from parasites, and you decide, “I am not going to kill the parasites because I am not going to kill,” and you don’t take the child to the doctor or anything like that. That’s even more of a dramatic thing. It happens in India a lot – you know, “It’s God’s will whether or not the child gets healed. I’m not going to do anything.” Not only is it naivety about long-term cause and effect; it’s also naivety about cause and effect in terms of the short-term. 

This is another criterion that comes in – considering the short-term and long-term results of an action. The long-term results are more important than the short-term results. So, the short-term result in this example would be the insects getting killed, but the long-term result of benefiting lots of others would far outweigh the long-term result of harming the insects. This comes under the criterion of how much benefit the initiator of the action derives from the object of the action – the human beings that need food versus the insects. One has to look at short-term and long-term benefits. Then, too, there’s this whole bodhisattva mentality of “I accept on myself the suffering, the consequences of killing the insects in order to be able to help others.” 

There are many things that are problematic here. You see, the disturbing emotions, what they do is cause karma to ripen, basically and, therefore, to experience happiness and unhappiness according to the mechanism of the twelve links – specifically the links of craving (thirsting), and of what’s usually translated as “grasping,” but what I call an “obtainer,” which refers to five obtainer attitudes. Disturbing emotions themselves don’t produce happiness or unhappiness, like thinking with guilt or whatever. Well, thinking with guilt is an action – thinking, “I’m guilty; I’m responsible for this.” That wouldn’t cause the unhappiness. It's the circumstance for the unhappiness to arise. Having committed some previous destructive action would be the cause the unhappiness. I think that’s how you would explain it. 

Participant: But that’s what came to my mind because, in this Letter to a Friend, from Nagarjuna, there must be a king.

Dr Berzin: Yes, there’s a king.

Participant: And the king cannot do everything, so he has to delegate some things. Then those he delegates to say, “We have to make a decision. What do we tell the king to do?” Then there’s an action. Then, later, the king finds out that he was not well-informed, and he thinks, “I have made a wrong decision.” So, who’s accountable – the one who gave wrong advice or the king?

Dr Berzin: Remember that for most of the destructive actions of body and speech, except for inappropriate sexual behavior, the action can be just as destructive when we cause somebody else to do it for us. So, somebody gives advice to somebody else and says, “Do it.” The person who gives the advice could be in this category of an action done mistakenly, like a doctor giving the wrong medicine, thinking it was the correct medicine. They give advice which they think is good advice. This we do all the time, don’t we? We advise somebody and we think it’s good advice, but it turns out to be terrible advice. But then the question is, have we committed a destructive action? That’s interesting. In a sense, we have caused something destructive to happen by getting somebody else to do something destructive. The king, in doing it, was doing it at the request of somebody else. Either the king was forced to do it, like somebody in the army being forced to kill – although the king wouldn’t be forced to do it – or he did it at the request of somebody else, like when somebody requests, “Please kill me. I am suffering. Put me out of my misery.”

Participant: Or he has some misinformation, which is also…

Dr Berzin: He did it on the basis of wrong information. He didn’t know.

Participant: That was the case with Mr. Bush and the American government who said, “We need to defy terrorism. The Iraqis have all these weapons of mass destructive.” So, it was wrong information. But then people took for granted that it was accurate, and they said, “Oh, we must save the world from this mess.” But there were people who knew that this wasn’t correct information. I mean, there must have been some people who knew there was nothing like this to fear.

Dr Berzin: Well, doing something by ignorance, like Bush invading Iraq because he thought they had weapons of mass destruction, and it turns out that they don’t…

Participant: So, somebody had given him wrong information. I am sure there were people who knew there were no weapons. But there were also people who perhaps thought maybe if they…

Dr Berzin: Well, I am sure there were some people who thought that they did have weapons.  This is the whole thing: did they know that there weren’t any and just used it as an excuse, or were they really convinced that there were? That’s open to historical investigation. 

Participant: But what if he invaded on the basis of thinking that it would help?

Dr Berzin: Right. Well, there’s thinking that it would help. But I don’t really know because there are different levels of naivety, aren’t there? When a doctor gives the wrong medicine, the question is whether the doctor is negligent or not. Did the doctor investigate and find out what the side effects would be and if the person had an allergy or something like that? If the doctor didn’t do that and gave the wrong medicine and then the person died – that, I think, is very different from the doctor being very careful and checking everything but it being beyond his scope of expertise to know that this would badly affect the person. So, I think that we have to make that kind of differentiation. Bush not waiting to get all the confirmation about the weapons of mass destruction because of impatience – wanting to invade before it got too hot or whatever his reason was – is very different from invading based on having conclusive evidence that the weapons were there.

Participant: I think also there’s a difference because when there is one patient and one doctor, only one person is affected. But when you start a war, you know that there will be more than one person killed. There will definitely be more than one death.

Dr Berzin: Well, yes. That affects the heaviness of the action – whether one person is killed or hundreds of thousands of people are killed. 

Participant: Who registers all these results? Bush would not be able to actually experience all the people killed there, so where does this ripen if there is nobody like an Almighty God who assigns all the punishments to the individual mind-streams or something like that?

Dr Berzin: Well, again, we have to get into the whole discussion of the voidness of cause and effect and how the karmic potentials, tendencies and habits of an action are stored. How do you have a continuity of those things on a mental continuum? It’s not that some outside force puts them onto the mental continuum and that it just sort of happens automatically. 

Now, you could ask what these things are imputations on because karmic potentials and so on are imputations. Chittamatra would say they’re imputations on the alayavijnana. Svatantrika would say they’re imputations on mental consciousness. And the Prasangika would say that they’re on the “mere me,” the conventionally existent “me,” which then can be labeled on anything in terms of the five aggregates or the clear-light mind and so on. As I say, one has to really get into the understanding of voidness and mental labeling and of what makes the continuity between cause and effect. That’s a very major topic that’s investigated by all the different tenet systems and one that really concerns them. This is why they came up with the alayavijnana to start with. It was a way to account for the continuity of cause and effect. But nobody from any of the tenet systems would say that there has to be a score keeper up in the sky who accounts for all of this.

Participant: The point was how it can work without something like that.

Dr Berzin: Without something like that? It is just by doing something. By experiencing something, “it makes an impression on your mind.”

Participant: That was exactly the point: Bush doesn’t experience these people being killed.

Dr Berzin: Bush doesn’t experience it, but it happens. Because it happens…

Participant: People killing people…

Dr Berzin: There’s a happening of people killing people. How does that result come back on his mental continuum? I don’t know. The answer that comes to my mind, which is not a very satisfactory answer, is that it just does. It doesn’t have to be transported from anywhere. Nobody has to know about it. If you build a stupa and other people circumambulate it, light candles and things like that, you continue to build up positive karma, positive potential, from that, even a thousand years after you built it. So, it’s the same issue. How does that get to you? You’re not even in the same lifetime, let alone in the same place; you don’t see it. I think it just happens. It’s sufficient that something just occurs for the result to be experienced. But, actually, I’ve never really thought about it. Why would you have to see it or experience the man-made result of your actions in order to have a karmic result, a karmic force, from it? 

You could kill, for example, by planting a time bomb. If you run away before it goes off, you don’t actually see it killing people, yet you experience the results. Think of the law. That person would be guilty. That person would be punished in a legal system. Even if they didn’t see the people being killed, even if they didn’t know that anybody was killed, they are still responsible. So, there is this whole issue of responsibility. You teach a child, and that child later in life succeeds and gets a good job as a result of the education you gave to the child. You are responsible for that. Do you have to actually know that the child got a good job in order to benefit from that in terms of karma? No.

Participant: The question is: would there be a causal mechanism falling back on you due to the child succeeding? 

Dr Berzin: Yes. The result is…

Participant: How is this accounted for? How is this accounted at all?

Dr Berzin: How is it accounted for? The action of teaching the child plants a karmic seed. Now, for that seed to be full in terms of the whole action being complete, the action has to reach its finale. It could reach its finale a long, long time in the future. Until it reaches its finale, that seed is not so strong, not so firm. When it reaches its finale, it becomes stronger. And it could reach its finale over and over and over again, like with the example of many people circumambulating and benefiting from the stupa. So, what was originally planted gets more and more strengthened. The more difficult question is: how does that information get transmitted back to your mental continuum? 

Participant: That’s exactly the question.

Dr Berzin: That’s the question. And the point is that it doesn’t have to be transported. It’s just because it happens. There doesn’t have to be a transportation of information. It’s not that that information is like a ping-pong ball (to go back to our analogy of something existing by itself) that has to be transmitted back to your mental continuum. It’s not like that. It just sort of happens.

Participant: Even if it is not like that, it connects to your mind-stream and not to anybody else’s.

Dr Berzin: That’s because you did the action. One of the laws of karma is that if you haven’t committed an action, you won’t experience the result. 

Participant: That much is clear.

Dr Berzin: But how does it know to come to your mind? This question arises because you are thinking in terms of your mind-stream being a particular ping-pong ball and the information being another ping-pong ball and that it has to come back to the first ping-pong ball. Karma only works on the basis of voidness. It can’t possibly work on the basis of solid existence. 

Participant: But there is no description. 

Dr Berzin: They just say that it just happens. I have never seen a description, any model of that. 

Participant: With the stupa, people are basically walking around a couple of bricks that have been arranged in certain shape. It’s a certain thing for them, but maybe it’s a different thing for the person who built it. So, that’s quite interesting. 

Dr Berzin: I don’t know. Karma is not easy. But I wanted to at least introduce to you to some of the variables that one needs to consider in terms of karma and to appreciate that, in these Indian texts, they really looked at all these various factors.