WSW 29: Forming Fickle Friendships, Stealing Resources

[Verse 58, poetical version:

With comparative ease, we develop new friendships, yet since we are callous, not one of them lasts. We are filled with desire for food and fine clothing, yet failing to earn them, we steal and we scheme. Trample him, trample him, dance on the head of this treacherous concept of selfish concern. Tear out the heart of this self-centered butcher who slaughters our chance to gain final release.

Literal version:

Our new friendships are copious, yet the future of our concern and sincerity in them is short. Our longing for food is tremendous, yet our hard work goes toward striving to plunder or steal (for it). Crash, really crash down, right on the head of (this) ruinous concept! Deal the death blow to the heart of this butcher, a “true self,” our foe.]

What is mentioned in the verse is when we’re just making new friends and so on to prove to ourselves that we’re still attractive. This is like people who go to parties and clubs to pick up one-night relationships just to prove to themselves that they’re still attractive, but they don’t have any concern or sincerity in that relationship. That’s what is being spoken about here; that’s really an ego trip, just thinking of yourself. You think, “How many new people can I charm?” but I don’t any responsibility for a friendship with them. This is something we really have to watch out for.

I think the point here is that if you’re going to be friendly with somebody, it should be on the basis of caring about the other person, not just because it makes me feel good. Why do you want to be friends with somebody? Why do you want to be friendly, even just friendly? Because you think of the other person; everybody likes somebody who is nice to them, who speaks kindly to them. This is the point here. That gives us something to think about in terms of our own friendships. Are we in the friendship basically because we think of the other person and their needs, or are we thinking only of our own needs? Probably you’d have to say that we need a balance of both. But even if we need a balance of both, surely the emphasis should be more on thinking of the other person rather than our own selfish needs. It should be a long-term commitment, if you’re really going to become a friend of somebody: “in good weather and bad weather”– not just a “good weather friend.” 

I think for instance of my mother. My mother had Alzheimer’s disease and so, after a while, she didn’t recognize anybody. But she had a friend in the retirement village where she lived; she lived next door. They saw each other and spoke to each other five to 10 times a day through all the 12 years she was there. After my mother went into the hospital, this woman never ever called her again – never. It was too depressing, too upsetting for her to call my mother, and so she didn’t. That’s an example of thinking only of yourself. I had an aunt like that. My grandmother was in a nursing home for the last years of her life – her mind was alert; she just had a very slow cancer that took a long time. My aunt never visited her – though they lived in the same place – because it was too painful, she said, to see her mother like that. Again, I think that is really what we’re talking about here from a different angle. This happens in relationships in which, for instance, one of the partners gets AIDS. Well, are you going to stay with the partner through the whole death process or do we just want to find a new friend that’s going to be more exciting and more fun?

So, this the line here: “Our new friendships are copious, yet the future of our concern and sincerity in them is short.” We’ll think about that for a moment.

Then the second part of the verse is: “Our longing for food is tremendous, yet our hard work goes toward striving to plunder or steal (for it).” We want to get not only food, but we want to have material things – a comfortable home, a new computer, all sorts of things like that – yet do we actually put the honest work into getting it or are we just trying to find easy ways? Here it’s talking about “plunder or steal (for it),” but it could be cheating in our work – let’s say, if we are a merchant overcharging, which is basically stealing it from the customers. This is the type of thing that it’s talking about. If we want to get food, if we want to get material comfort, then we need to earn it by an honest living. If we try to make our livelihood in a dishonest way, cheating others, then the karmic result of that is that it won’t go well for us: others will cheat us, we’ll lose our things or they get stolen, you don’t make a good living. In the short term, it might work, and we might get a lot of money; but in the long term, from a karmic point of view, it won’t work at all. It will be like the wheel of sharp weapons coming back on us. This is what this verse is about.

Participant: I wanted to ask, in the Buddhist thinking, who collects the karma?

Dr Berzin: That’s a very good question. Where is the karma registered? There are many different schools of philosophy within Buddhism, and your question is one of the most central questions that is discussed in the different schools of philosophy. Most of them speak in terms of different levels of mind, since the mind continues from one lifetime to another lifetime – like a movie, one moment after another. Then the question is what level of mind continues. It has to be a very subtle level that goes on – not the level that we ordinarily have when we’re awake or when we’re asleep but more subtle than that. But it’s never seen in terms of something really solid that we’re talking about here. Although the word “seed” is used, it’s not really a solid seed that is carried somewhere. 

You have to ask, what is the basis for labeling? When you talk about a habit, for instance – what is a habit? Where is a habit located? You can’t really say that it’s located anywhere. You could say that the basis for the habit is my mental continuum: the continuity of my moments of experience. In repeated moments, I drink coffee, so there is this experience of drinking coffee. There is this experience, there is that experience – there are many different experiences. Putting it all together, how would we describe that? We describe that as a habit. So, what is the basis that we are labeling with that word “habit of drinking coffee”? It’s that continuity of the mind, the continuity of experience. But the habit itself isn’t something solid that you can point to and say, “There it is.” It’s the same thing with karma. 

Karma is very complicated. Buddha said it was the most difficult thing to understand. One of the reasons for that is that what happens to us is affected by everything: all of history, all of biology, everything affects what we experience, doesn’t it? We’re all interrelated, and everything happens dependent on everything else.

Participant: It’s not directly related but – what is exactly the Buddha-nature?

Dr. Berzin: What is exactly the Buddha-nature? It’s a very complex topic, but Buddha-nature is referring to those factors that we all have that will transform into the various aspects of a Buddha, or which are responsible for the various aspects of a Buddha that we’ll have. For instance, the fact that we have a body, speech, and mind means that we can have a body, speech, and mind as a Buddha. If we didn’t have body, speech, and mind, how could you have that as a Buddha? So, there is a basis, for example. But also, when we speak about the faculty of understanding, that’s something which can be developed more and more and more. We have that ability to understand – that would be a type of Buddha-nature – that then can be increased. I’m speaking in a very general way here, not in a technical way. Or the fact that we all have basic compassion, even if it’s just directed at ourselves: I don’t want to suffer so we take care of ourselves. Most people have it, most species have it toward their young as well – survival of the species and so on. That’s something which can be developed; that’s an aspect of Buddha-nature. Or the fact that the mind doesn’t exist in impossible ways: the voidness of the mind that allows for the mind to be developed. The mind doesn’t exist as some concrete, solid entity that can never change. Because it is not like that, it can be developed, so that’s part of Buddha-nature. It’s all these different aspects.

Participant: But how can I take the Buddha-nature from one life to the next life?

Dr. Berzin: It’s not that you’re taking something. Each moment of experience has certain characteristics: there is understanding, there is energy, there is the energy goes out so the ability to communicate. This goes on from moment to moment. If it goes from moment to moment, it also goes from lifetime to lifetime. It’s the essential factors that will allow us to become a Buddha. We have those qualities; the wall doesn’t have those qualities. A living being has those qualities; a rock doesn’t have those qualities. Regardless of what life form we take in each lifetime, still those basic qualities are there, and it’s on that basis that you can develop respect for all beings. We try to build up these positive habits, but of course we build up negative habits, too. So, you want to build up more positive ones and, in each lifetime, different combinations of them will manifest. You want to develop very strong positive ones, and develop a very strong wish that they continue, especially when you’re dying: “May I continue to be a kind person, may I continue to be able to develop and improve myself, may I continue to have contact with spiritual path and qualified spiritual teachers.” As I said, there are many different levels of explaining it, but I think the easiest to understand is on the mental continuum. Then we can go more subtle than that, but it’s basically the continuity.

But our time is up for today, so let us end here with the dedication. We think whatever understanding, whatever positive force has come from this may it continue – here we’re dealing with karma – may it continue, may it grow stronger and stronger so that it acts as a cause for reaching enlightenment for the benefit of all. It’s called the dedication: when you build up a certain amount of positive energy, you want to give it a push in a certain direction so that it doesn’t just end like that – like with a telephone call, interrupting what we’re doing.