Recap
We’ve been going through this text, Wheel of Sharp Weapons, which is a lojong or attitude training text written by Dharmarakshita. This is a very early lojong text and a very important one in terms of elaborating on the tonglen practice and connecting it to karma. We have been going through a series of verses which explain various suffering type of situations that happen to us, and then seeing what are the Karmic Causes of that, and then resolving not to commit those karmic causes in the future. Then we extend this to thinking about others and how others might be experiencing the same type of problem, and take that on from them, and give the solution to everybody else.
We saw that doing this tonglen practice like that of giving and taking with compassion – to take away their problems and love to give them happiness – can be based on just an initial level, which is to overcome the selfishness with which we are resisting that type of practice. We don’t want to have to take on and deal with other people’s messes, other people’s difficult situations; we just rather not get involved. Also, if we think of it in terms of voidness, then we can expand the basis upon which we label “me,” and label “me” in terms of not just this individual being but the whole group of beings that I belong to – humanity, all sentient beings – and therefore the problems of all sentient beings are my problems as well. In this way, we can practice taking on, and dealing with those problems, and giving the solution. In this case, it’s restraining from the negative actions that produce these suffering situations as their results.
Karmic Causes of Being Sleepy during Practice
This is what we’ve been doing, and we’re up to verse 29. The poetical version of it is:
When sleep overwhelms us while practicing virtue, this is the wheel of sharp weapons returning full circle upon us from wrongs we have done. Till now we’ve gathered the causes for obstacles hindering our practice of virtuous acts.
Here it fills in what this might be:
(We have lacked all respect for the scriptural teachings; we have sat on our books and left texts on the ground. We have also looked down on those with deep insight.) Hereafter for the sake of our practice of Dharma let’s gladly endure all the hardships we meet.
The more literal version, which is an awful lot shorter than that, is:
At times when sleep overwhelms us while practicing the Dharma, this is the sharp weapon of negative karma circling back on us from having accumulated (acts of) defilement toward the hallowed Dharma. Now, for the sake of the Dharma, let’s practice what’s hard.
The suffering situation is that sleep overwhelms us while practicing the Dharma. This is obviously quite common; an awful lot of people, when they go to teachings almost instantly fall asleep. When we are trying to meditate and so on, also our minds get dull, and we become sleepy. Whereas if we are at a nightclub, we certainly don’t get sleepy; we’re excited. Or when we’re with our friends, or are watching something on TV that we like, we can stay up all night. This is obviously a very strange situation that when trying to do positive things, practicing the Dharma, sleep overwhelms us. Or even just reading: if you get into the habit of reading as a way to fall asleep, then what is the habit you build up? It’s to get sleepy every time you read, isn’t it? But anyway, here it says that this is the result of “having accumulated acts of defilement toward the hallowed Dharma.”
This word, “defilement” – I didn’t really know how to translate it properly – it’s an interesting word. It’s the word “drib” (sgrib) in Tibetan, which is used for “pollution” as well. It’s also the word for obscurations like the emotional obscurations that prevent liberation and the cognitive obscurations that prevent enlightenment or omniscience. “Drib” (sgrib) also has the connotation of a hindrance. It sometimes is used for a blockage – like in “tsa-drib” (rtsa-sgrib), a blockage of the channels, which is the Tibetan word for a stroke – when you have a blood clot in your brain. Here it’s referring to, in a sense, a type of pollution, or dirtying, or making some blockage that we do to our practice with respect to the Dharma. This seems to refer primarily, from the commentaries, to not being respectful of the Dharma. If you’re not respectful to it, then that causes these blockages. That’s obvious: if we show respect or have respect for something, we’re open to it, we’re receptive to it and so on. If we don’t respect something, we’re closed to it, and if we’re closed to it, well, what does that result in? It’s falling asleep when we try to do that thing that we haven’t had respect for.
One of the ways of being disrespectful to the Dharma is basically showing disrespect for the teachings. The teachings can be in written form, so showing disrespect to the texts like sitting on a Dharma book or just putting it on the floor. The way of treating texts is always that if you’re going to put it on the ground or on the floor, to at least put it on a piece of cloth or something like that. Mind you, in India floors were all made out of dirt, and so one has to keep that context in mind; but even so it is a way of showing respect to put something underneath the book or to put it on a little table. When the Tibetans do any sort of pujas or Dharma practices, they themselves sit on a cushion, and they have a little table in front of them that they put the text on. This is a way of showing respect. Also, Tibetans are in this habit of licking their thumb to turn over pages, and they say also that that’s very disrespectful to put your spit on the book when you turn the page with your finger like that. That also is quite disrespectful.
Actually, what they say is that it is best if you show that same type of respect to any written word. Now, what does that actually mean? When we get advertisement in the mail, what do we do with it? Well, we throw it away in the garbage. Actually, if you think in terms of the separation that we have nowadays of paper garbage in one place and food garbage in another bin – that actually I think would be quite good in terms of showing respect to the written word. In India, what was always recommended is that you burn any paper that has written things on it. That of course is not possible here in the city, but I think separation of the garbage is not a bad idea in terms of showing respect to the written word. Another aspect of showing respect to the Dharma is showing respect for those who are sincere practitioners – those who have some sort of realization, or at least trying to gain some realization, or really are very serious about the practice. This as well is an appropriate object for showing respect. How do you show respect? This is an interesting question in the West. How do you show respect with people? This is an interesting question, in the West. By showing up and showing up on time, and paying attention, and not talking to your neighbor. This is a way of showing respect. Because I think that in the West, for a Western person to make prostration to another Western person just seems to me really forced. It’s imitating an Asian custom which really seems to be quite irrelevant to our Western way of acting, doesn’t it? Making prostration is a very good way of developing humility, but one can make prostration to a Buddha statue, to a painting, to something like that. That’s fine; but I’m talking about making prostration to a Western teacher.
There are other ways of showing respect like standing up when the teacher comes into the room; showing the teacher to the seat if it’s a strange place, giving them a glass of water – this type of thing is a way of showing respect. But I really question one Westerner bowing to another because eventually there won’t be Tibetans teaching in the West so much; it’ll be Westerners. How many Indians continue to go to Tibet and teach in Tibet? It eventually became all Tibetan, or all Chinese, or all Japanese. I think the principal of showing respect is very important, but the question is how. Coming to a teaching and being clean, for example; not coming really being dirty and smelling, and dressing properly – this is another way of respect.
It’s about being respectful not only to the teacher but to the Dharma. For example, when you meditate, there’s the standard preparation steps that one is supposed to follow before having a meditation session: sweep the floor, dust the altar, set up the water bowls, and only then do you sit down and meditate. The meditation room should be neat; it should not have dirty clothes thrown all over the place. This I think is very much in the spirit of this thing. If you meditate in a dirty room, that’s not really showing respect. If you are inviting a great teacher to your house, you don’t leave dirty laundry all over the place, or your dirty underwear; you clean up. The same thing when you’re meditating. This is this idea of pollution: if you make things dirty in terms of your practice of the Dharma, then your mind gets dirty or polluted in the sense that you fall asleep when you’re doing positive things. If the environment is in order, your mind tends to be more in order. If the environment is chaos your mind tends to be infected by that, and it becomes also chaotic. Look at the way that the Tibetans keep their rooms: In India, they have very small rooms, and everything has its place and completely in order. It’s sort of like how you would keep a tent if you were a nomad. It just has a much nicer atmosphere to it. It’s like leaving a sink full of dirty dishes for a day or two until you run out of dishes, and then you wash them. This is again creating an untidy environment. Also, I think it’s important to show respect to oneself when practicing the Dharma. How do you show respect to yourself? By, for instance, changing your clothes when they get dirty – it’s one way of showing respect, of taking care?
This is the point here: “When sleep overwhelms us while practicing the Dharma,” this comes from “having accumulated (acts of) defilement toward the hallowed Dharma. Now, for the sake of the Dharma, let’s practice what’s difficult.” Well, it’s not so easy to clean up and so on. I know myself that the whole ritual in the morning before I can actually sit down to meditate takes almost a half hour. I’m not thrilled with it taking all of that time. I’d rather get on with what I want to do in the morning. So, in a sense that’s difficult. Also, what may be challenging particularly for us Westerners, who tend not to have respect for anything, is to show respect.
What’s the basis for showing respect? It’s appreciation. I work a lot with Tibetan language, and in the teachings on entrusting yourself to the spiritual teacher, where does this word that’s translated as “respect” come in? This is the attitude that you develop when you have thought about the kindness of the teacher. It’s not based on thinking of the good qualities of the teacher – their study and things like that; it’s about thinking of their kindness to you. Then you develop this attitude. So, in a sense it’s appreciation. If you really appreciate the Dharma, and the texts, and the teachers, and so on then you show respect for them. This I think is very interesting; it’s how one starts to get a little bit of a feeling for these words – not just look it up in the dictionary but look at how it is used. I think that gives a lot to think about. You have to make an effort to clean up, you have to make an effort to get a cloth underneath the books, and so on. But I think that it can be done in a way which is not artificial, of just imitating Tibetans and taking on Tibetan customs. We have to find a way that is comfortable to us as Westerners, and we do have ways, I think, in which we can do that.
There are also always the sayings like of Milarepa: “I have nothing to repay my teachers’ kindness with except to follow his practice” – what he advises me to do. That’s the best way of repaying that kindness: showing appreciation. As it says in the Fifty Stanzas on the Guru, if a teacher advises you to do something and you can’t do it, or you think that it is really too much, then respectfully you ask the teacher for clarification, or respectfully you say, “I’m sorry, I can’t really do this. Can you explain what you’re thinking is, why you asked me to do it?” You don’t just follow orders – “Yes, sir!”. I think that indicates a mature, adult-to-adult type of relationship with a teacher rather than being a little child. After all, obedience is not one of the virtues that’s mentioned in Buddhism – following orders. What’s always stressed is learning to be able to stand on your own feet and become a Buddha yourself. Taking responsibility ourselves is, of course, quite difficult; it’s much easier to depend on somebody else. I don’t think it’s showing respect to become dependent on a teacher – that the teacher is going to solve all my problems for me, and I’m not going to take really responsibility.
Let’s do this tonglen practice here of thinking in terms of, first, this problem, which I’m sure most of us have, that you get very sleepy while listening to teachings. I’m going to His Holinesses teachings this week; most people fall asleep, don’t they? It’s very difficult to stay awake. The Tibetans put Tiger Balm underneath their eyes so that it will keep you awake. Although one can take temporary measures like bringing Tiger Balm to the teachings or taking a lot of coffee, nevertheless, you look at the karmic cause. We have in the past undoubtedly dirtied the Dharma – as it says, we have “accumulated acts of defilement” – not showing proper respect. Now what we resolve to do is to stop that, and to do what is difficult in terms of showing respect, and treating things in a proper type of way with appreciation. Then think of everybody else who is falling asleep during the teachings and take on that problem, which doesn’t mean that then we become overwhelmed with sleep and we really fall asleep. We take it on as a common problem, and imagine that it leaves them and sort of dissolves and settles into the ocean of the mind, and then we give them as well this discipline to be able to act in a proper way, a respectful way, toward the Dharma.
No matter what type of thing we’re doing, even if it’s not the Dharma; if you’re treating clients as a therapist, for instance, you would keep the room in which you treat them clean. You wouldn’t have a completely messy room with all sorts of dirty laundry around. It’s the same thing if you’re working as a carpenter or something – you would keep your tools clean. I think this attitude of showing respect by keeping things neat and proper is quite widely applicable.
Karmic Causes of Becoming Distracted
The next verse, 30. The poetic version:
When our mind wanders greatly and runs towards delusion, this is the sharp weapon of negative karma falling back on us from wrongs we have done. Till now we have neglected to meditate fully on defects pervading this transient world; hereafter let’s work to renounce this existence and see the impermanent nature of things.
The more literal version:
At times when our mental wandering is great, delighting in disturbing emotions, this is the sharp weapon of negative karma circling back on us from not having meditated on impermanence and the drawbacks of samsara. Now, let’s maximize disgust with recurring samsara.
The problem here is mental wandering: our mind just runs all over the place – particularly when we’re trying to meditate, or work, or focus on anything positive – and we delight in disturbing emotions. What does that mean? We take great pleasure in doing things that are going to increase our greed and desire – wandering around shopping malls, or looking at pornography, or anything like that that’s going to stimulate the disturbing emotions. Or to be in a situation where everybody is angry or everybody is drunk, or everybody is stoned, or just go out to pick up other people sexually, and so on. It’s delighting in a disturbing emotion, in situations that are going to stimulate our disturbing emotion; that just causes the mind to wander away from any type of Dharma practice. I suppose one could also include in here taking drugs; also in the previous verse – taking drugs that make you sleepy and dull and that make the mind unclear. Here it would be drugs that would make the mind wander all over the place and not be able to focus at all. When our mind is constantly going over these things that are just going to increase our samsaric suffering, then the problem is that we haven’t meditated on impermanence and the drawbacks of samsara.
We don’t have much time left; as it says in so many teachings, we’re like on a conveyer belt going toward our death, and that conveyer belt is not stopping for a moment. Every day we’re getting closer to our death and so why don’t we realize that? If we realized that, then we wouldn’t waste so much time. Obviously, we need to relax, but there is a difference between relaxing and getting into a situation that just causes the disturbing emotions – our desire, our anger, or jealousy, or our dullness – to increase. That’s not really what’s meant by relaxation. If we think in terms of death and impermanence, then we become much more sober, and this is the point. We need to realize the drawbacks of samsara; even if we have a tremendous amount of money, it’s not going to help us at the time of death, and actually it just creates a lot more problems in general. If we have a lot of money, we can use it to do good, but then there’re so many people with a lot of money who are absolutely miserable. They are worried about losing the money, how are they going to invest it, how do they deal with taxes, how do they deal with people who like them just for their money and don’t like them for any other reason. Then your relatives are all going to fight with each other after you’re gone to see who can get the money, and who can get more money. It really can cause a tremendous amount of trouble and problems. One needs to look at the drawbacks of samsara. If you become very famous, then nobody ever leaves you alone, and you’re constantly bothered by people wanting your time. Or it’s like movie stars, who can’t go anywhere without paparazzi following them, trying to take their photo and make money off of that selling a photo of them.
One needs to think of the drawbacks of samsara and impermanence; that will help the mind not to wander after these type of things. What we want to do is to maximize our disgust with recurring samsara, with samsaric situations. If one takes this to its full extent then, I think it’s really very difficult because what we want to renounce then is rebirth altogether – rebirth under the influence of karma and disturbing emotions. This is a very difficult stage to actually reach on a sincere level because even if you think in terms of rebirth, it’s very easy to have attachment to precious human rebirth: “I want to have that” and “I’m attached to that;” or “I’m attached to being with my teachers and my friends and so on, and we’ll all go to enlightenment together.” It is a very nice thought, but what’s underlying it is actually still an attachment to samsara. Samsara means to constantly being reborn under the influence of karma, so you’re just acting impulsively and with disturbing emotions. So, really to wish for liberation is quite something.
One can fool oneself into saying, “Yes, I want to continue to be reborn, and help all my friends; may we always be together.” On the one hand, that’s a proper prayer: “May I be able to help everybody; and those that I have a close connection with, may I be able to continue helping them; and may I be able to make connections with more and more beings, and help everybody.” What I’m saying is that one has to check to see how much attachment is behind that, or is it really a pure type of thing. Because we can have a tremendous attachment to friends and loved ones, which most of us have; I certainly have. One needs to examine: is there some disturbing emotion behind that? Renunciation doesn’t mean that you give up all friends and never have any friends; that you not help anybody and that you’re not close to anybody. You look at the definition of attachment: attachment is focusing on the good qualities of something or someone, which might be there, but then exaggerating them. Because you exaggerate them and make them into “You are the most wonderful thing in the world,” then you get attachment: if I have them, I don’t want to let go; and if I don’t have them, I want them.
It’s this exaggeration that is the problem here. One needs to recognize – which is not so easy – that everybody is suffering, including the friends that we think are so wonderful and I want to be with them all the time. Rather than thinking in terms of what the happiness is that I can get with being with them, the more appropriate thought is, “How can I help them to overcome their suffering? How can I help them in general?” I really must say that’s it’s very difficult to have that on a sincere level. As His Holiness always says, you try to have more of the dharmic motivation, not have it be a 100 percent samsaric. Because unless we’re actually a highly realized bodhisattva we’re going to have some samsaric motivation there.
Renunciation is disgust with samsara. Literally, the word “renunciation” is that you’ve made up your mind; you’ve become firm, determined to get out, which means to get rid of the garbage. If we haven’t reached that point, then our mind wanders: “I want to be with this one,” “I want to be with that one,” “I want to watch this program,” “I want to go to this party or that party.” That’s the mental wandering here. This is a tough one actually. One works on it, trying to minimize it. It’s interesting that the term that’s used in the text is to maximize disgust; we try to make it as great as possible in a realistic type of way. Disgust means enough already. Again, that’s a tricky thing, isn’t it? I’m thinking of the example of people who won’t open up to somebody else because they are afraid that they are going to be hurt again, because they have been hurt in the past. Is that proper disgust? Is it?
Participant: Yes, if they notice that the pattern is the same, kind of person is the same, kind of situation.
Dr Berzin: In a sense, but I think if it’s fear of being hurt, that’s quite a disturbing state of mind. “I don’t want to get into another sick relationship because that’s not beneficial to me” or “it’s not beneficial to the other person” – that I think is a healthier attitude. “I don’t want to have a relation with you because I’m afraid that you’ll reject me” – it’s not very healthy; it shows very low self-esteem. “You’ll find out what a terrible person I really am, and you will leave me” – that’s not very healthy. One really has to think quite deeply, what does renunciation really mean? In terms of the drawbacks of samsara in general, I think that with renunciation, the state of mind is not one of fear. It’s just that “I’ve had enough; it just brings more suffering.” And yet, one needs to engage in the world, unless you go off to a cave for the rest of your life. But even then, you have to deal with getting sick, and being cold, and all the things associated with the body, which is also something that one wants to have disgust with. “I don’t want to continue having this type of rebirth with this type of body.” But then you object and say, “Oh, but this body – I can get a lot of pleasure from it.” Bit you can get a lot of pain from it as well. Shantideva uses a very nice image; he says, “Use it like a boat for getting across samsara,” and then you have to take care of the boat, otherwise it is going to sink. It’s very tricky how one deals with the general world. Often you hear the advice in the Dharma, “Live your life as if it were a dream,” without taking it too solidly: “This one is the most wonderful person, this one is the most attractive, this one is the most horrible;” “This type of thing I have to buy, I have to get, I’ve got to destroy.” Take it in much more non-solid type of way.
The reason for the mind wandering is because you take things so solidly: “I can get so much pleasure out of going and watching this television program or out of buying this thing in the store” that your mind wanders after it. Or, “I’m so upset about what I read in the news,” and so the mind wanders after that. When your mind wanders, then you’re not able to focus on anything positive like in helping others. You can’t focus, not at all. Your mind runs to something that just causes a disturbing emotion to get stronger and stronger – desire, anger, jealousy.
When we start to get very frustrated and mentally wander over “I have to do this and I have to do that,” and “I don’t have enough time,” and “What am I going to do?” and so on – this is again mental wandering of feeling pressure. The reality is that I have all these different things that I have to do. The reality is also that the more that I worry about it, the less I’ll be able to do these things. Worrying about it and constantly thinking about it – “Oh, I’m going to be late, I have to do this, I have to do that” – is basically thinking about “me.” It’s thinking about a big, strong “me” and “What am I going to do?” Whereas you can simply think, “Okay, I have all these things to do, and I’ll do them in the proper time, but now I focus on this,” and maybe you write a little note so that you don’t forget it. But this is always a big problem: when we’re trying to do one thing, our mind wanders about the next thing that we’re supposed to do, and we don’t stay focused on this.
In the tantra meditations on the stages of death – the death process occurs in either eight or ten steps, depending on the energy system – you do the meditation in which you familiarize yourself with the various states of mind and the appearances that happen during these stages. This is so that you’re not going to be so freaked out when you die, and you’ll be able to do some meditations at that time. One of the things that is recommended when you’re still a beginner with this is to have some concept, in a sense, when I’m at this step, of what’s come before and what’s coming next. It doesn’t mean that you mentally wander about it, but it’s just to keep the context, and I think that one of the benefits of that is that you don’t space out in this one step and get lost in that because you see the larger process. Similarly, when we have a lot of things to do in the day, or in a week, or whatever period of time, we should have that context so that we don’t spend more time than is necessary on one thing.
It’s like if you have appointments to see clients; you have to stay aware that there are two or three more clients that I need to see after this one, and so I can’t spend an extra amount of time with this one. But that doesn’t mean that you spend all your time when you’re with one client thinking about the next one. That’s mental wandering, and that you need to renounce because it’s just going to cause you suffering and make you more and more inefficient. This is a very interesting thing and one that one can practice at night. It’s a very good practice, which is, when you’re trying to go to sleep, try to stop your mind from thinking. I’m sure everybody experiences this: you lie down, and then your thoughts keep on going and going, you’re talking in your head. You need to just realize that I’m never going to fall asleep if I don’t shut up this voice in my head, and you just shut it up. I think that’s a wonderful opportunity to practice, because it works, actually. If you can shut the voice in your head and just keep your mind silent, you have a much better chance to falling asleep, especially if you realize that what’s going on in my head is absolute garbage, and this really is not interesting. You just stop. There is no trick to it; the trick is to just stop. If it starts again, stop – this is what paying attention and alertness are all about – to see when it starts talking again. Here the object is to fall asleep which isn’t the greatest, but it’s a practical application. Obviously, one wants to try to do this in meditation; you’re focusing on gaining single-minded concentration. I try to do that when I want to go to sleep: quiet the mind, especially if you have to spend a night on an airplane, it’s hopeless unless you quiet your mind. Otherwise, you’re going to be up all night.
Let me read the verse again then we can meditate on it a little bit:
At times when our mental wandering is great, delighting in disturbing emotions, this is the sharp weapon of negative karma circling back on us from not having meditated on impermanence and the drawbacks of samsara. Now, let’s maximize disgust with recurring samsara.
It’s not just the drawbacks of samsara; it’s impermanence: our situation is not going to last forever. Our youth is not going to last forever, our health is not going to last forever, our wonderful circumstances are not going to last forever. There may be another war in Europe; there can be an earthquake – who knows what’ll happen. While we have the opportunity, take advantage of the opportunity – but without becoming a fanatic because that just is counterproductive.
Let’s do this in terms of ourselves and then in terms of everybody else. Think in terms of death and impermanence, renunciation of samsara. How to do that without becoming a religious fanatic – that’s the interesting point.
Karmic Causes of Our Plans Going Astray
Verse 31, the poetical version:
When all our efforts, both religious and worldly, run into trouble and fall into ruin, this is the wheel of sharp weapons returning full circle upon us from wrongs we have done. Till now we felt cause and effect could be slighted; hereafter let’s practice with patience and strength.
The more literal version:
At times when no matter how we do things, they go astray, never working out, this is the sharp weapon of negative karma circling back on us from having made light of karma and behavioral cause and effect. Now, let’s make effort to build up positive karmic force.
Whatever we try to do, it just doesn’t work. We try to bring about some sort of effect like succeed in our work, or finish some project, or get a grant, or get a job, or whatever it is what we’re trying to do – whether it’s in a Dharma sense, we’re trying to get some sort of attainment or some sort of practice going; or it could be in a worldly sense – it never works out. “This is the sharp weapon of negative karma circling back on us from having, made light of karma and behavioral cause and effect.” In other words, we haven’t put in the causes that would bring about an effect. If we want to achieve something then you need all the causes. Effects don’t come from no accumulation of causes. That’s why it says, “Let’s make effort to build up positive force:” if we want to have positive effects or positive results, we need to build up the positive force from doing constructive things that will act as the causes.
This is of course very profound because even if we think in terms of cause and effect, we tend to think in terms of just short term-cause and effect – instant karma. If we apply for the job and have good grades, we’re going to get the job. We’ve put in the cause by getting in good grades, which isn’t really going back far enough in terms of karmic causes that would cause the circumstance of getting good grades to enable us to get a job. When we think in terms of karma, in terms of cause and effect, we need to think in terms of long-term results. By being generous, you have a certain amount of wealth – well, don’t expect that you’re going to get it instantly. This type of attitude toward cause and effect requires a great deal of faith almost, because how do we know that acting in a certain way is going to bring about certain effects in the long term in the future, particularly future lives? That’s hard to know except in terms of believing that what Buddha said was correct, and that Buddha is a valid source of information.
I think Tsongkapa said it in his Praises to Dependent Arising: if what you said about voidness and dependent arising is correct, then we could have belief in the other things that you said; they must be correct as well. If what you said about something so profound that enables us to really get rid of suffering is so correct, and we can corroborate that from our own experience, then what you said on other levels in terms of karma must be correct as well. That’s really the only thing that we can go by in terms of karma. But it’s important, when things don’t work out, which often is the case in our lives, that we don’t get discouraged and we don’t think “I’m being punished,” or we don’t think “it’s hopeless and why even try.” The thing is that in that type of situation, we need to think in terms of building up karmic causes and not expect them to ripen in this lifetime.
Also, if things have been going very well in our life, we need to not take for granted that it’s always going to continue going well, but realize that we need to continue building up the Karmic Causes of it to continue to go well. That also is quite important, otherwise as they say, you use up your store of positive force and then it’s finished. That we don’t want to do. As they say, great bodhisattvas are happy when they experience terrible things because they are using up their store of negative force, negative potential; whereas they don’t want to use up the positive one by having things go well. That’s a little bit extreme but one gets the point: when negative things happen, think, “Ah, very good” – that’s getting rid of that type of karmic debt, in a sense; whereas if things are going really well, you want to make sure you continue to build up the causes for things to continue to go well.
This is in terms of things working out well for ourselves, things working out well for others, things working out well for the world. Look at the disasters in Iraq or in Palestine, Afghanistan and so on – things are not going well. Why? Not just because of poor planning right the days before, but a long karmic type of thing. One needs to really work very hard at least for ourselves, and if we want things to work out, we need to build up the positive force for that from acting constructively and not ignore and make light of karma and the teaching on karma. We need to not think that “I can sort of pick and choose the parts that I like, and the parts that I don’t like I’m going to ignore.” Often we do that, pick and choose, in terms of the Dharma teachings, and that’s not really very wise.
Let’s think about this verse in terms of ourselves and then tonglen.
At times when no matter how we do things, they go astray, never working out, this is the sharp weapon of negative karma circling back on us from having made light of karma and behavioral cause and effect. Now, let’s make effort to build up positive karmic force.
Dedication
Then let’s end here with a dedication. We think whatever positive force, whatever understanding has come from this, may it go deeper and deeper, and act as a cause for reaching enlightenment for the benefit of all.