LTF 29: The 4 Dhyanas; 5 Factors Influencing Karmic Results

[41] By means of the four dhyana states of mental stability, which rid you of the experience of desire realm (objects), physical joy, mental bliss, and suffering, you achieve fortune equal to the gods of the celestial realms of the Brahmas, Brilliant Light, Full Virtue, and the Greatest Fruit.

Background to the Dhyana States – Samadhi, Shamatha, and Vipashyana

There is quite a lot to explain about these four dhyanas. When you work to get shamatha, as it’s called in Sanskrit, or shinay (zhi-gnas), in Tibetan (namely, a stilled and settled state of mind), you progress through nine stages of meditative absorptions that are called “the nine stages of settling the mind.” Basically, what you’re working on here is to try to overcome the different levels of flightiness of mind (the mind flying off to desirable objects) and dullness. There’s a very, very detailed explanation of how to overcome flightiness of mind and mental dullness and the stages that you go through. The ninth stage of that is called “settling the mind with ease,” which means that it doesn’t require effort any more. When we’ve achieved that level, or stage, of concentration, we’ve attained what’s called samadhi, the Sanskrit term that is used in many systems to mean many different things. But basically, it means single-minded concentration, single-pointed mind. Now, that is not yet the attainment of shamatha. 

Shamatha, the stilled and settled state of mind, is one step beyond samadhi. It adds to it a sense of “fitness” (is literally what it means). It’s an exhilarating feeling of body and mind, which is a mental factor that accompanies this state of mind. You feel fit; you feel that your mind is able concentrate on anything that you want it to for as long as you want. Serkong Rinpoche used to describe it by saying, “It’s like having a jumbo jet. If it goes into motion, it will stay in motion; if it’s sitting on the ground, it will just sit there.” So, it’s this type of feeling. It is very exhilarating and uplifting in both a physical and mental sense.

When you achieve a state of vipashyana, an exceptionally perceptive state, it is on the basis of shamatha; you can only get vipashyana with shamatha. Vipashyana adds a second level of this sense of fitness with which there is the exhilarating feeling that the mind can perceive anything. That’s why it is called exceptionally perceptive: we can understand anything and differentiate anything. The mind can deal with anything that is complex.

Shamatha and vipashyana are not necessarily Buddhist. There are also practices in other Indian systems for achieving them, like in the Hindu and Jain systems. Shamata and vipashyana are basically just tools, not ends within themselves. They can be attained focusing on voidness, of course, and these sorts of things, but they can also be attained focusing on many other objects. 

Participant: Shamatha does not include voidness?

Dr. Berzin: No, not necessarily. 

Participant: What do you focus vipashyana on? 

Dr. Berzin: Vipashyana, in anuttarayoga tantra, for example, is not focused on voidness. Depending on which tantra you are practicing, you could focus on a dot at the tip of the nose or the middle of the brow or, also, at the tip of the sexual organ. Then, in the next row, while keeping that first dot there, you visualize two dots, then four dots, then eight, then sixteen, thirty-two, sixty-four, etc. You visualize them all completely in order, and then you dissolve them one row at a time. Then, inside the dots, you have little vajras, and you do the same thing with them. Then, inside the dots, you have mandalas with all the deities in each of them complete. With that, you get an unbelievably perceptive state of mind that is able to deal with anything complex and to keep it all in order and to keep it straight. 

The additional advantage of doing vipashyana the anuttarayoga tantra way is that it doesn’t disturb the winds, whereas in other practices, it can get the winds moving too much. So, here, what you are doing is focusing this vipashyana practice on either the upper end of the central channel or the lower end of the central channel, so it helps to bring the winds into the central channel. Because of that, it has this secondary benefit. It’s unbelievably difficult, but none of these practices are easy. They’re never advertised as being easy. Anybody who advertises these Buddhist practices as being easy is basically just trying to sell them to you cheap in order to attract people. His Holiness calls that propaganda, Buddhist propaganda. 

In any case, that’s a little regarding shamatha and vipashyana. So, it doesn’t have to be on voidness; it can also be on the sixteen aspects of the four noble truths if you want to do it in a broader Buddhist way, one that would cover all of the Buddhist schools.

Form and Formless Realm Minds on the Basis of a Human Body

Now, these dhyanas – what’s going on with the dhyanas? You have four dhyanas, these states of mental constancy. The mind is constant; it’s even, stable. Four of these states are associated with the plane of ethereal forms, the form realm. In Buddhism, there are three different planes of existence:

• The plane of desirable objects, which is usually called “the desire realm”  
• The plane of ethereal forms, which are very subtle forms, not the grosser forms of the desire plane
• Then, the plane of formless beings, where the various beings that are born there don’t have gross bodies; they have just the subtlest wind as the physical basis for the mind.

There are also various god realms in each of these planes of existence. Within the plane of desirable objects, there are the six different realms or levels.. One of those six is where the desire realm gods reside. Then, we have the form plane and formless plane. Actually, I’ll call these the “form realm” and “formless realm,” which is the usual way that they’re referred to, since that’s simpler. In the form realm and formless realms, there are certain levels of gods. But these are still samsaric rebirths. 

There is another level that we can speak about, which is to have, on the basis of a human body, a form realm mind or a formless realm mind. This is what is being spoken about here regarding these higher levels of concentration. On these levels you achieve what are called “sensors,” cognitive sensors, and the consciousness of these higher planes of absorption. It’s on that basis that you can have ESP. With these special sensors, you can see incredible distances, to know other people’s thoughts, and stuff like that.

Participant: ESP?

Dr. Berzin: Extrasensory perception. 

Levels of Concentration within the Four Dhyanas of the Form Realm and the Four Absorptions of the Formless Realm; Shamatha is the Indispensable Preliminary

OK. There are these four dhyanas, and then there are four balanced absorptions in the formless realm. Each of them has a preliminary state and an actual state. The preliminary state is for getting onto that level, and then the actual state is once you have got there. The preliminary states are basically looking down on the lower states and thinking, “Well, I want to get rid of that,” and looking at the higher state that you are trying to achieve, discriminating that as something you want to achieve. Then you apply the various methods and so on to achieve the actual state.

When you achieve shamatha with the first dhyana, you’ve attained what’s called “the indispensable preliminary stage” of the first dhyana. Achieving shamatha – and this is according to the Sautrantika school and above; Vaibhashika says this is still in the desire realm, but all the other schools say that this is a mind in the form realm – is indispensable. It is also enough of what you have to achieve in order to go further on the path [the Buddhist path or the paths of meditation?]. However, you can also go further on the dhyana levels. So, shamatha is the indispensable preliminary stage. 

There is also “a mere actual” and “a distinguished actual” state for the first dhyana. The mere actual state is one in which you still discriminate the lower levels as something you want to get out of and the upper levels as what you want to achieve. Then, the distinguished actual state is one in which you don’t discriminate anymore between the lower levels, only the higher levels. So, there are three states within the first dhyana: the preliminary, the mere actual, and the distinguished actual. Then, there is the actual of the second, the actual of the third, and the actual of the fourth. These three do not have subdivisions.

Participant: The distinguished state doesn’t make sense to me. Why would you stop knowing what came before? 

Dr. Berzin: It’s not that you don’t know it; it’s that you don’t look down on it and say, “This is what I want to get rid of.” In each of these dhyanas, the mind gets rid of more and more things; the mind gets more and more subtle. 

In order to achieve a path of seeing, a seeing pathway mind, or in other words, a mind that has nonconceptual cognition of voidness, your mind has to be in one of these six states – the three with the first dhyana and the actual second, the actual third, and the actual fourth. That, actually, is a very interesting point – that it has to be with one of these deeper types of concentrations. 

If you add to these six the actual first, second, and third (so, not the fourth) levels of absorption the formless realm the  that makes nine. To achieve the path of meditation, the accustoming pathway of mind (which is where you actually get rid of more and more obscurations), and to achieve either liberation or enlightenment, your mind has to be from one of those nine levels of mind. Then you get this incredibly complicated thing of what level of concentration you have to have in order to achieve the various attainments. 

However, all of this has to be on the basis of a precious human life, a human body, because, ultimately, in terms of tantra, the human body has the energy system and so on that enables you to achieve enlightenment. Also, it has neither too little nor too much suffering, which enables you to actually be motivated to achieve enlightenment.

Participant: The dhyanas can be achieved by…

Dr. Berzin: But the dhyanas can be achieved by anybody; it doesn’t have to be a Buddhist. All of these dhyanas are common to non-Buddhists. They are just tools. This is why Buddhists – at least those from the Tibetan tradition of Mahayana – say not to bother with all these deeper and deeper levels of dhyanas, even though you could reach liberation and enlightenment from them. The first level of shamatha itself is the indispensable preliminary, and it’s sufficient. If you want to go further, you can go further. In the Theravada tradition, where they do this type of practice, they say that it helps to get the mind more stable to work with these deeper levels. 

What do we have with these deeper levels? This is actually quite interesting. 

Do the Siddhis Have Anything to Do with the Dhyanas?

Participant:  Do they have anything to do with the siddhis? 

Dr. Berzin: With the siddhis? Yes, absolutely. The siddhis are the actual attainments of the various dhyana states. You only get the actual attainments when you have the cognitive sensors – in other words, when you have the physical aspects and the mind of a form realm being that is capable of all these siddhis. So, yes, they have to do with the siddhis. You can’t get the siddhis without the dhyanas. 

It’s interesting. Atisha emphasizes that the siddhis are very important in order to help others because he says that, otherwise, you wouldn’t know what’s going on in the minds of others. If you really want to be able to help others,  even if they are not communicative, you should be able to understand what is going on and know how to help them or to be able to see things very far away – see that there is danger and so on – so that you can warn people. However, there is always danger with the siddhis. So, in Tibet, a lot of masters warn against them. They say that they are useful, but not to make a big deal out of them, not to get attached to them. 

Serkong Rinpoche always used to explain it this way. He said that when you buy a bag of rice, it comes in a paper bag, but you don’t buy it in order to get the paper bag; you buy it in order to get the rice. However, whether you want it or not, you get the paper bag that the rice comes in. He said that shamatha is the rice and that these siddhis are the paper bag. So, whether you want them or not, you get them. But that isn’t the purpose for doing the meditation. Serkong Rinpoche always had very nice analogies. I like them very much. They’re the type of analogies that stick in your mind.

The Temporary Stoppings Associated with the Four Dhyanas of the Form Realm

Now, with these various dhyanas, you get a temporary stopping of various things. That’s also why they are very dangerous: certain things stop temporarily, and you think that you are rid of them forever. Then, of course, you rise out of the meditation, and they come back. If you have been very attached to that experience, you become very, very disappointed and experience a big fall.

First of all, what you get rid of in all of these different levels, are certain types of sense consciousnesses. 

[1] As soon as you get to the first dhyana, there is no more anger. Anger is finished – temporarily. You also don’t have the suffering of suffering; there is no physical or mental unhappiness (so, you can see how it becomes very attractive to stay in this level of absorption). Also, there is no smell or taste consciousness. Those are temporarily stopped.  They’re also temporarily stopped on all of the higher levels. 

What you still have, though, is discrimination of the lower attainments as being inferior and the upper ones as being superior. You always have that discrimination in the preliminary stages of each of these four dhyana and four formless balanced absorption states. However, here, with the mere actual first dhyana, you still have that, and with the distinguished actual, you only have the one of looking at the higher state as being more superior. 

Also, you have no desire for any desire realm objects. That’s why it says, “by means of the four dhyana states of mental constancy, which rid you of the experience of the desire plane (objects).” That’s the first dhyana. In this state, you are not interested in our ordinary, desirable objects; you’re only interested in ethereal forms. There is no smell or taste, only sights and sounds – heavenly music and these sorts of things – and physical sensations.

Participant: What about drinking and eating? You forget about it? 

Dr. Berzin: You forget about it. There is no drinking and eating while you are in the absorption. The need is temporarily stopped. We are not talking about a rebirth there. The problem is that if you become attached to this too much, you can get a rebirth in the form realm. We’re talking here about in meditation.

[2] In the second dhyana, there is no sense consciousness at all. That’s temporarily blocked. There’s no seeing, no hearing, smelling, tasting, or physically feeling; it’s just mental consciousness. Also, there is no longer this discrimination of the lower states as being inferior and the higher states as being superior during the actual absorption. Also, you don’t have any more physical happiness because there is no sense consciousness. You were already rid of physical unhappiness and mental unhappiness; now you are rid of physical happiness as well. That’s why it says in Verse 41, “which rid you the experience of physical joy.” This line is referring to the second dhyana. So, you have only mental happiness here, and, of course, you can get attached to that. 

[3] On the the third dhyana, you have no mental happiness either. What you have is “a blissful state,” it says, that is not in the category of physical or mental happiness. So, it’s a different type of bliss. That’s why it says in this verse, “which rid you the experience of mental bliss.” That’s referring to the third dhyana.

[4] In the fourth dhyana, you are rid of that as well. Then, you have total equanimity; you’re without any type of happiness and without any type of unhappiness.

Participant: That’s already like the formless realm?

Dr. Berzin: This is still the form realm, the fourth dhyana. Then, it says in this verse that you don’t have “any suffering,” which means you don’t have the suffering of change. Remember, there are three types of suffering. There’s the suffering of unhappiness, the suffering of change, which is our ordinary happiness – both of which you are temporarily free of – and the all-pervasive suffering, which is having aggregates (basically, body and mind) that are the basis for the first two types of suffering. That type of suffering is still there. 

Participant: But you are still in your body?

Dr. Berzin: You’re still in your body. You’re in meditation. You’re sitting in meditation on a meditation cushion.

Participant: How can you come out of it?

Dr. Berzin: Well, that’s the problem. You get very attached to these absorptions. So, how do you get out of it? What really gets you out of that (and this is the problem with Theravada and why Theravada has so much emphasis on metta-bhavana, love meditation, and these sorts of things) is that somehow you remember other beings. In Mahayana, they emphasize very much that it’s your compassion that gets you out of these states. Otherwise, you would just stay there because it’s so nice. However, you think, “Ah! With the other poor, suffering beings around me, I can’t just sit here and bliss out.” 

So, these are the four dhyanas. 

The Temporary Stoppings Associated with the Four Absorptions of the Formless Realm

Now come the formless realm absorptions. These are interesting. The first one is that now you are rid of all of these things, and you still keep this level of equanimity, free of happiness and unhappiness. On the next formless absorption…  actually, I’m not absolutely sure; I don’t have too many details on this. I certainly haven’t experienced this, so I have no idea. At any rate, let’s go through the list:

[1] The first of the formless levels is called the “Heaven of the infinity of space.” So, you are rid of all of the stuff from the ethereal forms’ level. What you are attached to is the infinity of space. Now, you can focus on other things as well here. It doesn’t mean that you are always focusing on the infinity of space, but there is a certain attachment to the infinity of space. 

[2] You are rid of that attachment on the next level, which is called the “Heaven of the Infinity of Consciousness.” So, what you are attached to is the infinity of consciousness. But as with all of the form and formless dhyana states, you could also be meditating on other things. 

[3] The third level of absorptions is called the “Heaven of Nothingness.” So, the mind is attached to nothingness. It gives up the objects of the infinity of space and the infinity of consciousness and is now just absorbed on nothingness. 

[4] The fourth level of absorptions is called the “Heaven of Neither Recognition nor Non-Recognition.” “Recognition” is actually “distinguishing.” Here, the aggregates of feeling and distinguishing are temporarily stopped. You don’t feel or distinguish anything at all, not even nothingness. This is a certain type of absorption called “a cessational” absorption.” What all of these would actually be like in an experience, I’m not sure, but this state is called “the peak of samsara.”

These different states of meditation, of meditative absorption, is a whole big topic that’s discussed when you study the Abhisamayalankara (A Filigree of Realizations), which is what they study for getting the geshe or the khenpo degrees.

Participant: You are on this higher state and don’t have to distinguish anything. But how about the breathing in and out? Do you forget about it?

Dr. Berzin: I don’t know whether the body automatically continues to do that. It would probably do it at a much, much slower rate. And who actually achieves this? I have no idea. There must be some people who can achieve this. I know there are some Tibetans who are well-known for achieving shamatha, but they are rare; very rare. 

[To participant] I don’t know if you knew Geshe Rabten. Did he die before you started going there? 

Participant: I have not seen him.

Dr. Berzin: You didn’t meet him. Well, I knew the old Geshe Rabten. The old Geshe Rabten was famous for having achieved shamatha. When he was living in India, before he went to Switzerland, he’d go to teachings and be sitting there without moving a muscle for the entire duration of the teachings. You know how Tibetans often sway back and forth, and things like that when they are sitting. They may be concentrating, but they certainly move their bodies around. Despite it saying in the teachings not to do that, they do. They say it has to do with the winds in the body and not getting lung and so on. Anyway, Geshe Rabten was like a rock. It was really very noticeable. I didn’t know of anybody else who was popularly known for that. 

Participant: Any Westerners?

Dr. Berzin: I have no idea. This is why I am always suspicious about various Westerners saying, “Oh, I went through all the various dhyanas in my meditation” and so on. I mean, really. I don’t know. But it’s not impossible.

First of all, there are various people, even in Dharamsala, who are up in caves in the mountains that you never hear about, never know about. They used to all come down to Serkong Rinpoche’s house. That’s how I knew about them. Serkong Rinpoche used to teach them. That was the only thing they came down for every now and then. Then, they’d go back up. I would imagine some of them have attained shamatha. But even bodhisattvas… there’s only Kunu Lama Rinpoche, and he died long, long ago. But everybody recognized him as actually being a bodhisattva, as really having the “Real Thing” bodhichitta. Who else really has that? These things are rare, but possible.

Participant: I’m sure they never told people that they had all these realizations. 

Dr. Berzin: No, they never claimed it themselves, but it was obvious to anybody who met them. Kunu Lama Rinpoche used to stay in Bodhgaya through the summer. This is the hottest place in India! Amazing. It was interesting, Serkong Rinpoche studied with him, and Lama said, “You have to come to Bodhgaya in the middle of summer if you want to study with me.” So, he would. It’s 48 degrees in the summer there, and there’s an unbelievable number of mosquitoes and these sorts of things. Here in the West, teachers certainly don’t make students undergo those types of hardships. Nobody would come. They don’t even come when there is a holiday or when there is a birthday party, let alone going to Bodhgaya in the summer. 

Anyway, like that are the teachers who would live in Tibet in the horribly high mountain places that were really difficult to get to. The students would have to go up every day and then back down – this type of thing. That’s to develop your strong motivation – that you really, really want it. Also, it builds your character, so it’s very good. However, there are very few students, I think, who have that type of renunciation, that type of determination – “I’m really going to do it. I don’t care how difficult it is,” like, for instance, walking to India in the time of Marpa. I am always amazed by Marpa’s biography. And I always find it so inspiring that he did all these translations in India and then had to go back to Tibet with a whole stack of what he’d translated. He was in a boat crossing the Ganges River, and the boat sank, and he lost everything. So, he had to go back and do it all again. 

Participant: Computer crash. 

Dr. Berzin: Maha, grand computer crash! And he did it again! This is what is so inspiring. 

Participant: And he didn’t have copies. He had to go to different places…

Dr. Berzin: That’s right, it wasn’t just one place. He had to go back to various teachers and so on. So, that is really quite amazing. Quite amazing. 

To go back to the verse, we have all these different realms of dhyana-state absorptions. It says:

[41] By means of the four dhyana states of mental constancy, which rid you of the experience of desire realm (objects) (so, that’s the first dhyana), physical joy (that’s the second one), mental bliss (that’s the third one), and suffering (that’s the fourth one), you achieve fortune equal to the gods of the celestial realms of the Brahmas, Brilliant Light, Full Virtue, and the Greatest Fruit.

This last line states the names of various god rebirths in each of the dhyana realms in the form realm. It doesn’t mean you will actually get rebirth there; it just is using it in a poetic sense to describe that these are levels of high attainment. 

So, that is about the dhyanas. 

Now we start get into what you do after the actual meditation. Here, it talks, first, about the actions that you do – what to adopt and what to reject – and then about avoiding the hindrances to concentration. Now we get into the discussion of karma. It says:

[42] The mightiness of karmic actions, whether constructive or destructive, derives from five aspects: their frequency, (the motivating emotion) adhering to them, the absence of opposing forces, (the benefit or harm created by) the basis (at whom they’re aimed), and the major good qualities possessed (by that basis). Therefore, make effort in constructive behavior (having these five).

Nagarjuna points out only five, but if you look at the literature, you see that there are actually twelve factors that affect how heavy the results of your actions will be, whether negative or positive. These, I think, are very important to study and to learn because, if you are going to do something destructive, you want to try to minimize the heaviness of the result. Conversely, if you are going to do something positive, you want to try to maximize the strength of the result. 

[1] The first factor that Nagarjuna mentions is frequency. 

In the list of twelve, which actually derives from three different sources – basically, from Asanga and Maitreya’s writings –  frequency has two aspects of it: (1) how frequently you did the action in the past and (2) how frequently you repeat it. If you continue to repeat it, it adds to the strength of the karmic force. 

I’ve told you the story of my house in India being infested with bed bugs. So, once I had to fumigate the house and kill all the bed bugs; otherwise, it meant moving. What you want to do is to make that a one-time thing. I hadn’t done it in the past. If I had done that many times in the past, or if after doing it once, I became a professional exterminator and did that as my profession, the karmic results would be much heavier. So, if you have to do something negative… 

Participant: But if you have a family, for example, and they would starve otherwise, then you have to do the negative action. Is that as much of a negative action?

Dr. Berzin: Well, if you have a family who would starve otherwise, then you have to do it. I sometimes used to translate for Geshe Ugyen Tseden, the old, old ex-abbot who sometimes comes to the center at Habsburgerstraße here in Berlin and who is the teacher of Geshe Ngawang Dhargyey, my teacher. I was with him in Australia once, and they asked him a question on this topic. They said, “We live in some,” what they call “stations” in Australia, which refer to sheep stations, “and that’s the only industry in our town. What should we do?” They raised sheep, basically, for meat. He was  very tolerant (he is, I mean. He’s in his late eighties; he’s maybe over ninety now) and he said, “Well, if you look at the teachings on the wrong livelihoods, what’s listed there, basically, is to not be dishonest.” He said, “If there is no alternative employment, then at least be honest in your work; don’t cheat people and be kind to the animals.” I thought that was a wonderful answer. Certainly, the people appreciated that. He didn’t say, “You’re going to go to hell for doing this, so move,” whereas somebody else could have answered like that. Obviously, if there is some alternative, then you try something else. But, if there’s nothing else, at least be honest about it, don’t cheat people and be kind. So, that’s important.

So, the frequency of the action. If you are going to do something positive, you should try to do it frequently.  If you meditate, the more you meditate, the better. 

[2] The second factor is the motivating emotion adhering to them. 

This refers to the motivating emotion, whether positive or negative. The texts speak about the motivating emotion at three different times. The first is (1) the causal motivating emotion that draws you into thinking to do or say something – so, this is before the physical or verbal action actually occurs. It is causal to the extent that that mental action leads to a physical or verbal one. Then, (2) is the contemporaneous motivation, which is the emotion with which you get into the actual action. Then, (3) is the motivating emotion with which you carry out the action and bring it to its conclusion. 

This becomes very interesting. Again, this brings me back to my experience of having to exterminate the bed bugs. You start off with the causal motivation – “Ah, compassion. I want to be able to work to benefit others, and I wish these bed bugs a better rebirth,” etc., etc. Or it could be something like, “I need to save my baby from being bitten by a malaria mosquito.” You start off with compassion. But, then, when you actually get into the action (at least this is what I saw in myself) and are squirting the poison and bringing the action to an end, the emotion is, “Die you bastards!” You start to really get into the killing. It’s really funny. Not funny as in “ha, ha,” but it’s really strange how the emotion changes as you’re actually doing something. 

It’s the same thing when you are doing something positive. Let’s say, you’re meditating. You could start with all sorts of positive motivations, but in the middle, you could start to get really bored and tired and… “When is it going to end? When are they going to ring the bell?” By the end, you can even become angry. 

It’s quite nice that Vasubandhu makes this distinction between (1) the emotion that motivates you to get into an action, (2) the emotion with which you start to get into the action, and (3) the emotion with which you actually carry the action out and bring it to its end, to the finale of the action. 

Participant: I have another question. I don’t know whether it’s specific or not, but in the end of the Guru yoga, when you say that you’re not supposed to list the endless things that you’ve done wrong. How to do thus?

Dr. Berzin: Well, when we do purification like guru yoga, we want to purify the negative things that we have done in the past.

Participant: Even if we don’t remember what we’ve done?

Dr. Berzin: Well, yes. even if you don’t remember what you did. Obviously, we did negative things in past lifetimes. So, all you can think in terms of are the difficulties that you are experiencing now, realizing that you must have made the causes for them. So, even if you don’t remember what the causes are, you can infer what they might have been. Then, you think, “I don’t want any further…” I mean, what’s already ripened can’t be changed, but you think how you don’t want further ripening of these things. Then, you also look at what you have been doing now and what things would ripen from that. And you want to purify that. So, purification can be based on actions that we know that we have done and those that we don’t know that we have done. 

Participant: Still, now, this is a text for the king. What does Nagarjuna mean in terms of guru yoga practice?

Dr. Berzin: Well, Nagarjuna is not speaking about guru yoga here. 

Participant: I mean, for example, let’s say that I’m a king and I do guru yoga practice, and then Nagarjuna tells me, “You should take this advice.”

Dr. Berzin: This advice from this verse? 

Participant: Yeah.

Dr. Berzin: By guru yoga, I imagine what you mean is purification practice. That comes a little bit later, in one of the points on doing positive things to counteract negative karma. But doing positive things to counteract it is not enough. We also don’t want to commit further negative actions. So, all the rest of this advice is about that – not repeating the action and watching out for what your motivation is when you are doing positive things as well. Nagarjuna starts, “The mightiness of karmic actions, whether constructive or destructive, derives from [these] five aspects.” So, it’s for constructive actions as well. 

[3] The next is the absence of opposing forces. 

If we do something negative, the karmic consequences will be heavier if we don’t do something positive to counteract it, whether that’s purification practice, whether it’s going out and helping the poor, whatever it might be. Likewise, in terms of constructive actions, if we haven’t done negative things, the force of our constructive actions is stronger. So, the absence of opposing forces.

[4] The fourth one is (the benefit or harm created by) the basis at whom they are aimed. 

In the case of  killing, for example, there is a big difference between stepping on and killing an ant and assassinating Mahatma Gandhi. So, this has to do with the amount of benefit or harm that the basis – the being that you aim your action at – has brought about in the past and/or is capable of bringing about. This factor will affect the heaviness of the karmic result. 

[5] The last factor he mentions is the major good qualities possessed (by that basis). 

So, it’s not only how much good the basis has done; it’s also what their good qualities are, whether it be kindness, meditative attainments, or whatever it might be. 

These are the five that Nagarjuna mentions. Actually, there are six, if you count the two types of frequency as separate factors. If we add those six to the following six factors, we have twelve factors.

The other ones that we find in the list are, for instance: 

[6] The length of time that the causal motivation is held. 

If you think for a long time with anger how you are going to hurt somebody and that anger is felt for a very long time before you actually go out and hurt them, the action becomes a stronger destructive action than getting angry with them on the spur of the moment and hurting them without having thought much about it beforehand. The same thing applies to doing something positive. If you plan, for instance, to do a retreat or go on a pilgrimage or something like that and you hold that positive motivation for a long time while you think about and plan it, the action becomes a stronger positive action. That’s another factor.

[7] Whether or not a disturbing outlook is part of the motivation. 

“Disturbing outlook” actually refers to a distorted outlook, which is a disturbing, antagonistic outlook that denies what’s true – for instance, denying the value of being positive, the value of cause and effect, the value of meditation, or whatever it might be. It’s not just denying it; it’s also being very antagonistic against anybody who thinks that way – for example, thinking, “Ah, they’re stupid and no good! They’re really dumb, and I’m going to try to harm them.” So, if that outlook is part of the motivation, it would be like a fundamentalist, religious fanatic hurting somebody as opposed to someone hurting somebody without that type of antagonistic, distorted way of thinking. “The way you think is wrong! Your beliefs are wrong! This is no good – you’ve got to be exterminated.” This type of thinking makes the karmic results of the action much heavier. 

[8] Then, the nature of the act. 

This refers to how much suffering the action is capable of creating for the object of the action as compared to other types of destructive actions you could direct toward that being. This refers to the fact that killing somebody is heavier than stealing their car, and stealing their car is heavier than lying to them. So, there is certain order in terms of the actual nature of the act. Some acts are karmically heavier than others. Saving somebody’s life is certainly stronger than giving them a euro on the U-Bahn. 

The next one:

[9] The method used to carry out the action. 

This has to do with the amount of suffering the method used is capable of inflicting on the being who’s the object of the action. If you torture somebody to death as opposed to killing them instantly, that makes the karmic result of the action much heavier.  

[10] Then, the material item involved in carrying out the action. 

This refers to the value, whether financial and/or emotional, of the item. So, stealing somebody’s computer that has a great deal of emotional value to them and great value in terms of their work will bring about a heavier karmic result than stealing a banana out of their shopping bag. 

Participant: Maybe a very expensive pen.

Dr. Berzin: A very expensive pen? We’re talking about the emotional or financial value, the importance that it has to the other person. 

Participant: But if you steal something, and this person is so upset that they kill themselves…

Dr. Berzin: Well, it makes the karmic result of your action heavier. This has to do with how much suffering you cause the other person by your act. So, if somebody steals from you… I had this happen to me. I gave some money to somebody in order to do something for me, and they ran away with the money. I never got it back. Because it was somebody who I thought was a friend and because I actually liked the person, I thought, “Well, how can I help this person by making this action less heavy?” I saw that the only way that I could help this person would be to not get angry. “If the action doesn’t cause me much suffering,” I thought, “the karmic consequences for them will be much lighter.” So, that’s what I did. “If you need the money more than I needed it… It’s not going to change my life significantly, so good luck.” 

So, this is about the emotional value of the object stolen, how valuable it is to the person, and how upset they get. You could yell at somebody, but if your words don’t upset them, it’s not as heavy. 

Wasn’t there this incident at the World Cup with the French player? If the Italian guy hadn’t yelled at the French player with something that upset him so much, it wouldn’t have been as bad. However, he yelled at him and said something very nasty about his sister or his mother, or something like that, which really got the French guy upset. Because the French guy was so attached, the karmic result for the person who yelled at him would be much heavier. This type of factor then affects the heaviness of the karma.

[11] The last factor is the strength of reliance of the initiator of the action. 

That’s talking about whether or not you have taken a vow not to commit the action. For instance, if you have vows not to kill, steal, lie, etc., and then you kill, steal, or lie, the result will be heavier than if you didn’t have any vows. 

So, these are the different factors that are involved in the heaviness of karmic results. I think these are really quite helpful to know about.

Participant: Isn’t there this other thing that’s mentioned about whether you repent or not?

Dr. Berzin: That’s the opposing forces – what you do to counteract the negative thing that you did. One of the things that counteracts it is apologizing if you hurt somebody’s feelings, for example. Then there is a standard list of the four opponent forces that are used in purification, the basis of which is admitting that what you did was a mistake. So, it’s not on the basis of guilt – “What I did was bad. I’m no good. I’m stupid. I’m a sinner.” Not like that. You just acknowledge, “This was a mistake, what I did. That wasn’t very clever.” 

After the acknowledging of the mistake, you apply the four opponent forces. 

[1] First of all, is regret. 

Regret is also not guilt. Regret is basically the wish that you hadn’t done the action. “I wish I hadn’t done that. I wish I hadn’t eaten that food that made me sick. I wish that I hadn’t eaten so much that I am now ill.” You don’t feel guilty or think that you’re bad because of that. I mean, you could, obviously, but this is just, “I just regret that I ate that; I wish I hadn’t.” 

That’s not always so easy, I must say. “I wish I hadn’t done it” – can you let go at that point? Or do you keep hanging on to the mistake? This is really what guilt is all about. Guilt is identifying with the thing that you did, identifying it as “bad” – “I’m bad” – and then not letting go and holding on to that. I use the gross example of never flushing your toilet or never throwing out the garbage; you just keep thinking how bad, how terrible it smells and not letting go. You don’t flush the toilet or don’t throw the garbage out. That’s like guilt. Regret is, “OK, I made a mess. I regret that,” and letting go.

Then, the next opponent force: 

[2] Promising to try your best not to repeat it.

Regret is the opposite of rejoicing. Rejoicing is, “I’m really glad that I killed that mosquito. I got that bastard!” The opposite of that is regret – “I wish I hadn’t done that,” then trying not to do it again. That’s the opponent to “I don’t care. When the next mosquito comes in, I’m going to get that one, too,” and then standing like a hunter, paranoid, waiting for the next buzz. You are lying in bed – you’ve gotten the mosquito – but now you can’t fall asleep because you’re waiting for the next one to come. This type of thing.

The third opponent force is: 

[3] Reaffirming your foundation. 

“What am I doing with my life? What I am doing, basically, is refuge and bodhichitta. I am trying to go in some positive direction in my life, working to overcome my shortcomings and to realize my potentials the way the Buddhas have done, the way the Arya Sangha is doing,” and so on. You reaffirm that refuge, “That’s what I am standing on,” and bodhichitta, “I’m trying to become a Buddha so I can really help everybody.” That gives you strength and courage to change your ways. 

[4] Then, applying an actual opponent force.

This can be Vajrasattva purification or something more active, like going out and actually doing something helpful for others. 

Did you see the movie “Gandhi”? There was a very good example of this. I don’t know if it was actually based on something that really happened, but there was this Hindu man whose son had been killed by the Muslims at the time of the partition. So, then, he was out trying to kill as many Muslims as he could. But then, he repented that. Gandhi said to him, “What you should do now is to adopt a Muslim child and raise him as your own son.”

Participant: And raise him as a Muslim?

Dr. Berzin: Yes, and raise him as a Muslim. That’s what we’re talking about – doing something to counterbalance the negative thing that you did. These are the opponent forces. 

Participant: This reminds me of this email I sent you. It was about this behavioral research where they have people commit some kind of immoral act or remember some immoral acts they’ve committed, and then, right afterwards, they give them the chance to wash their hands. 

Dr. Berzin: Oh, yeah. I remember that email.

Participant: They found that when people had a chance to physically wash their hands, they were much, much less likely to do a positive act right afterwards. Right after they washed their hands, they were told that there were these PhD students who didn’t have any money for their studies. Then they were told that if they wanted to, they could collaborate and be part of this research study without being paid. The people who had washed their hands were much less likely to help these PhD students. They were forty percent less likely. 

Dr. Berzin: And the ones who didn’t wash their hands?

Participant: Were more likely to help. 

Dr. Berzin: So, what is the conclusion of that – that if they washed away their sins, they wouldn’t have to do anything else to help others? 

Participant: Exactly.

Dr. Berzin: Well, that’s interesting.

Participant: It might be a danger in this kind of meditation – that if you do something wrong, you think that just by saying the Vajrasattva mantra, you wash away all the negative karma.

Dr. Berzin: Well, yes, there is that danger. Just as the participants took the washing of their hands much too solidly – “That has rid me of my sins; now I don’t have to do anything else. I am completely pure” – one could make a similar big mistake after Vajrasattva meditation to think that, even though Vajrasattva meditation can… Well, I’ll come back to this. But purification practice certainly doesn’t guarantee that you're not going to do anything negative ever again. 

Also, the thing of “I haven’t washed my hands, and I feel so guilty that now I have to do something good” – that, also, is doing the purification practice without any understanding of voidness.

It’s really interesting. I was reading something about this recently in Tsongkhapa’s Lam-rim chen-mo. Tsongkhapa actually speaks about this and explains that Vajrasattva meditation destroys (bcom, devastate) the seed of the negative karma, if it’s done properly, that is – obviously, not if it’s done like most of us do it. But if it is done with complete concentration and complete motivation and all of that, as well as the complete four opponent forces throughout the whole process, that seed, that karmic tendency, will not ripen into what it was going to ripen into, even if the circumstances for it to ripen into a certain type of suffering are present. 

However, as Geshe Tenzin Sangpo, who is the new Serkong Rinpoche’s teacher, was explaining to me, this doesn’t mean that it can’t ripen into something else, something less heavy. When it’s said that Vajrasattva practice destroys that seed, what that means is that it destroys the seed’s ability to ripen into what it would  have ripened into if you hadn’t done the purification. Still, though, it could ripen into getting a headache, for example, as opposed to getting really, really sick or something like that. So, it changes the direction. I mean, he speaks about whether or not it can cause another rebirth or whether it results in just the circumstances of another rebirth. In any case, that’s what “destroy” means in terms of the purification. It doesn’t necessarily mean that the seed will never ripen into anything again. For that, you need voidness meditation, which is basically to overcome what you get in the twelve links of what activates karma. If you have no more grasping for a solid “me” and all of that, then there is nothing that could possibly activate any karma. Then it’s finished. That’s how you get rid of it.

Participant: In these four opponent forces, I think that if one does the practice wrong – according to the idea from this study – you could come to the point where you stop short of actually doing something; you just stop at the third part and never actually…

Dr. Berzin: Well, the danger here, you’re saying, is that you could stop short if you don’t understand the purification process and don’t do the fourth part of the practice, which is applying an actual opponent force. Or you do a trivial opponent force, like washing your hands or just imagining, in a silly way, that Vajrasattva is on your head, that some lights come into you and that now you’re home free: you’re purified; you’ve gone through the sterilizer machine or whatever. 

Participant: Tantric sterilizer.

Dr. Berzin: Tantric sterilizer, right. A neutralizer. But you haven’t really used an opponent force, though you think you have. So, then – and this is what I’m saying – you grasp at it as being truly zero: nothing there – “I’m totally pure and it doesn’t matter what I do.” Or you think, “If I haven’t done anything to purify, then I am a real sinner and I have to do something to make up for my sin, to earn forgiveness.” That, also, is a mistake. We don’t “earn” purification. It’s just counterbalancing. If the water that’s coming out of the tap is too cold, you counterbalance it with a little bit of hot water so it’s not so cold. I think it’s like that.

The main thing always to work on with all these teachings on karma is combining them with some understanding of voidness; otherwise, it becomes too solidified, and that’s not what it’s meant to be. Karma is basically talking about cause and effect. Remember the teachings on voidness. Voidness is always together with cause and effect. Voidness doesn’t negate cause and effect; it explains how cause and effect works. 

If the cause were truly existent like a ping-pong ball over here and the effect were truly existent like a ping-pong ball over there, how could one produce the other? You remember the Nyaya thing – that you just connect them with a stick called “relationship” and that that makes the connection. It’s not like that. It’s only because they are not these solidly existent ping-pong balls that a cause can produce an effect. 

Then, who is the person that is being purified? Without this understanding of voidness, you go on the whole guilt trip or the whole trip of, “Now I am pure. Mr. Clean. Now I can’t produce any more harm.” These are big mistakes. 

That’s Verse 42.

Nagarjuna continues on this theme. He says,

[43] Just as a few grams of salt can transform the taste of a small quantity of water,
but not that of the Ganges River, realize that minor negative karmic actions are, in fact, like that with respect to vast roots of constructive force.

Here, what he is saying is to put the big emphasis on the roots of constructive force. If you do a lot of positive things, then the roots are very firm in the sense that a lot of positive things will grow from that. Your minor, negative karmic actions… I mean, we’re samsaric beings, so, inevitably, we are going to do some negative things. That’s going to happen. But don’t get totally freaked out when the ups and downs of samsara bring it about that we do something negative. If the force of our constructive actions is much, much greater than that of our negative ones, then, as it says, “a few grams of salt can transform the taste of a small quantity of water” – it will  make a glass of water salty. So, if we have done very few constructive actions, the negative force from our destructive actions will be much stronger. But a few grams of salt can’t change the taste of the Ganges River, which is a fresh water river. So, likewise, the few negative things that we do aren’t going to affect the constructive force so much. 

Mind you, there is the teaching that anger can destroy the “roots of virtue,” they call it, which refers to the network of positive force that acts as a root for producing positive results. To destroy that, though, takes really super-strong anger directed at a bodhisattva. Actually, it’s quite specific. The young Serkong Rinpoche pointed out to me that the positive force that would be destroyed is only the positive force that you have built up with regard to a particular bodhisattva. So, to destroy that positive force, you’d have to get really angry at that bodhisattva. Tsongkhapa, in Lam-rim Chen-mo, puts those two together – anger destroying the roots of virtue, the network of positive force, and Vajrasattva purifying the negative force. He says it’s the same mechanism. So, that positive force won’t give rise to what it would otherwise have given rise to; it would give rise to something much smaller. So, it destroys its ability to give the more positive result. It works like that. 

The last verse here, which then finishes this whole section, is advice on what to do afterwards, after after gaining concentration, which is to avoid the hindrances to concentration. This is a very famous verse, as famous as that analogy with the grams of salt. This is Verse 44. Nagarjuna says:

[44] Flightiness of mind and regret, ill-will, foggy-mindedness and sleepiness, desirous intents, and indecisive wavering – realize that these five obstacles are the thieves that plunder the gems of constructive (behavior).

This list of five is actually seven things, but Nagarjuna here, is taking four of these mental factors and making two pairs out of them. So, he puts together flightiness of mind and regret, and I must say, I don’t know why those two necessarily are together. “Flightiness of mind” is the mind going off to things that you are attached to. “Regret” is when you regret doing something, whether it’s positive or negative. “Ill-will” is when, out of anger, you think to hurt somebody and think negatively of somebody. “Foggy-mindedness” is when the mind is in a fog, completely unclear. Nagarjuna pairs that with “sleepiness,” which is a state of being sleepy; you’re about to fall asleep. “Desirous intents” doesn’t refer just to flightiness of mind but to thinking of something that you are attached to with desirous intentions – for example, “I’m going to eat this or do this to somebody else’s body,” or whatever. Then, “indecisive wavering” is when the mind goes back and forth. These are the obstacles to concentration. 

The Five Hindrances in Terms of the Three Higher Trainings

In some places, it says that all of these are obstacles to concentration. However, in many commentaries, it says that these five are obstacles to the three higher trainings – higher trainings in ethical discipline, concentration, and discriminating awareness, or wisdom. 

The first and third, flightiness of mind and regret, and foggy-mindedness and sleepiness,  block concentration. These are things we have to watch out for. With flightiness of mind, the mind goes off to things that we like, and if we are regretting what we did, we can’t really concentrate – “Oh, what I did, what I did…” these sort of thoughts. Foggy mindedness and sleepiness are obvious hindrances to concentration. 

The fifth one, indecisive wavering, is an obstacle to discriminating awareness. Discriminating awareness (often translated as “wisdom”) adds certainty to the distinguishing. So, first, you distinguish that “this is correct” or “this is incorrect,” and then discriminating awareness decisively discriminates what you’ve distinguished. It’s certain; there are no doubts whatsoever. “It’s like that” – your understanding of voidness, or whatever. “That is an impossible way of existing. It’s not the way that it is. This is how it is!” Wham! Decisive. Obviously, indecisive wavering – “Is it this? Is it that?” – is the big hindrance to gaining higher discriminating awareness. 

Then, numbers two and four are the obstacles to discipline. Those are ill-will and desirous intents. Having ill-will, thinking badly of others, or having desirous intents, as in “How can I steal somebody else’s wife or husband,” or whatever it is, will be obstacles to ethical discipline.

The Five Hindrances in Terms of Kalachakra

If you remember, we had, in the Kalachakra teachings, a slightly different listing of these five. There, it lists regret, foggy-mindedness, sleepiness, flightiness of mind and indecisive wavering. What it omits are ill-will and desirous intents. 

In that formulation, the foggy-mindedness, sleepiness and flightiness of mind are what block concentration. This is in agreement with Nagarjuna; however, what it leaves out is regret. Nagarjuna also has regret as an obstacle to concentration. Kalachakra has it as an obstacle to ethical discipline. That’s because regretting the positive things you did – “I regret that I took this vow,” or “I regret that I helped the other person” – makes a big obstacle for ethical discipline. It’s explained like that. With indecisive wavering, though, the Kalachakra list agrees with Nagarjuna that it’s the obstacle to higher discriminating awareness. 

So, these are the things that we have to watch out for afterwards, after we have gained concentration. We have to watch out that we don’t destroy it or weaken it with these obstacles. 

That finishes Nagarjuna’s presentation about concentration, or mental constancy. Next, if I remember the outline correctly, we start his discussion of discriminating awareness, which we can start next week. Any questions about this? 

What always impresses me about this text is that so many things that appeared over and over again in all the major texts that were written after this one seem to come from here. It really is a source of so much. That’s why the Tibetans especially call Nagarjuna the second Buddha. He really is a major, major source of the teachings presented in a much more condensed way than what you find in the sutras, which are are huge. That, they say, is the advantage of the Indian texts, the shastras – that they condense the meaning of the sutras and make it more accessible.

Participant: I saw a thangka in the Gelugpa tradition, which depicted the Buddha, Atisha, and Tsongkhapa as being the three most important.

Dr. Berzin: Well, it depends. It’s very Tibetan to have it like. That’s certainly not the full form, though. Tsongkhapa is the founder of the Gelug tradition. Atisha brought the Kadam tradition into Tibet, and that was the main tradition that Tsongkhapa founded the Gelug tradition on. 

Look at the refuge, or guru, tree, the tree of assembled gurus, in the Lama Chopa, the guru puja. There is nothing more Gelugpa than that. It has Tsongkhapa as the central figure and has these clusters of figures around. I always get it confused as to which side is which, but on one side, the central figure is Nagarjuna and that whole lineage, and then on other side is the lineage of Maitreya. Basically, these are the wisdom and the method lineages, respectively. Then they have all the Indian gurus, with Atisha bringing that, and then all the Kadampa geshes, which lead to Tsongkhapa. Then they have the Mahamudra and the various tantra lineages coming from the top. This is because Tsongkhapa studied with all sorts of Kagyu, Nyingma, and Sakya teachers, it depicts all of those teachings as well. There was no Gelugpa at his time, so he studied with what who was available. He studied with everybody. 

That was the amazing thing about Tsongkhapa. He took teachings from everybody and then was very critical of everybody’s understanding at that time. In his writings, what he did was basically to point out the inconsistencies in other people’s thinking and then, to go back to the original Indian sources and say, “Hey, look, this is what it means.” So, he was very revolutionary. I always say that he was an incredible revolutionary. It took a tremendous amount of courage to point out that these teachers were wrong. And yet, there is still all the emphasis on guru devotion, on having complete respect for the teachers, and so on. But that doesn’t mean that you don’t point out when they’re wrong – very respectfully, of course. Tsongkhapa did it in such a way that most of his teachers became his students afterwards, which is quite amazing. Then they taught each other back and forth. 

That goes back to Atisha as well. When Atisha went to Indonesia, the teacher that he studied with to get various bodhichitta teachings and so on, was Chittamatra. Atisha said, “I don’t agree with that.” He took all the bodhichitta teachings, but he didn’t accept the voidness teachings. This is something that is helpful because sometimes we get involved with teachers with whom we don’t agree on many things that they might teach. However, we can appreciate some of the positive things that they do teach. If we gain some positive things from them, that’s fine. We don’t have to agree with everything. You don’t have to be mindless slave. That’s a very important point for having a healthy relationship with a spiritual teacher. There’s no necessity for guilt. No problem.