Karma

by Ven. Thubten Gyatso

Good public speaking depends very much on the ability of the speaker to recognise and make use of feedback - the visible and audible reactions of the audience. When signs of approval appear, the point may be pressed home firmly, when disapproval is evident, the speaker must adjust the presentation to clear away doubts and objections. A good speech is an organic event that follows unplanned directions according to the response of the audience.

In a similar way, our entire life should be an organic event where the intentions behind our actions are wisely selected according to the feedback of pleasure or pain that we experience from similar actions in the past. Theoretically, our lives should be getting progressively happier as we learn from our mistakes and our intentions become more skilful. But the reality is that we do not get happier with age; Buddhism says this is because we have no real control over our impulsive intentions.

We wake up early and decide to make pancakes, motivated by the thought of a happy family at breakfast. Even if we are a terrible cook, and provided our children are not totally ungrateful little wretches, everyone will express delight, real or fabricated, at our efforts. On the other hand, we could get up early, make pancakes, and then greedily eat them all, hiding the evidence before the family wakes up. The pleasure derived from the first action far outweighs the pleasure of eating many pancakes, it will make our whole day go well, whereas the second action has already set our mind in an attitude of competition against the world and we are in for trouble at the office, not to mention a serious case of indigestion and yet another layer of cholesterol in our arteries.

The result of the first action will be rebirth in pancake heaven where exquisitely flavoured pancakes, dripping with cream, honey, and strawberries, will instantly appear whenever we think of them. In later lives, when reborn as a human, our family will lovingly wake us up every morning with fresh pancakes. The result of the second action will be rebirth as a hungry ghost in an excellent restaurant where our greedy eyes will observe humans delighting in pancakes of all types but, starving and emaciated, we will be unable to share in their pleasure. In later lives, when we are reborn as a human, nobody will ever make us pancakes and our breakfasts will be a continual misery of burnt toast, curdled milk, and mouldy cornflakes.

The key elements in these two actions were the intentions behind them. The first intention was supported by the virtuous attitude of love, the second by the non-virtuous attitude of longing desire. Intention is the activity of the mind that moves our attention to objects of interest and initiates our verbal and physical actions. New intentions arise every split second, coming from various immediate causes as well as from seeds laid down by virtuous and non-virtuous behaviour in past lives. The only way we can control our intentions, and therefore our lives, is through discriminating wisdom knowing the value of virtue and the faults of non-virtue.

The stream of consciousness, the mind itself, is the vehicle that bears the seeds of past intended actions which bring about future results in this life, and from life to life. These seeds bring about future happiness or unhappiness by again producing a mental intention which will connect us with a particular pleasant or unpleasant experience. We have untold billions of seeds in our mind-streams that, moment-by-moment, are responsible for the continual unfolding of our life. Virtuous seeds ripening and connecting us with happy experiences depends upon our maintaining a virtuous mental attitude. Non-virtuous seeds ripening and connecting us with unhappy experiences depends upon our having a non-virtuous mental attitude.

Thus our life and lives are reflections of our ever-changing intentions. If we do not cultivate intelligent behaviour and follow virtue, we will continue to suffer in the Wheel of Life as we have been doing since beginningless time. With every action we must be watchful and alert for the intention behind our action and the effect it could have on our life. Discriminating wisdom gives us the opportunity to make a choice whether to follow non-virtuous impulses or not, and whether to cultivate virtuous intentions or not. We alone are capable of determining our future, it is in our own hands. Faith in virtue is not enough. To free ourselves from suffering we must also act with love, compassion, and wisdom.

We have been to pancake heaven many times, yet we still crave strawberries and cream. The only intention worthy of our status as intelligent human beings is to abandon non-virtue entirely and attain Buddhahood, whereby we can most eloquently teach discriminating wisdom to our universal family forever.

Gyatso

This teaching is by the Venerable Thubten Gyatso (previously Dr Adrian Feldmann), an Australian monk and old friend now working in Mongolia. One of the senior students of Lama Yeshe, Lama Zopa Rinpoche (and also Geshe Roach) he is currently teaching at the FPMT centre in Ulaan Baatar. These teachings originally appeared in his local English language newspaper in Ulaan Baatar and arereproduced with his permission.

Thanks to Diane Olander (pelmo@got.net), these teachings first appeared on the Internet on the website (www.gepeling.org) of
The Jangchub Gepel Ling Center for Tibetan Buddhist Studies,
6960 Highway 9, Felton, CA 95018, Tel: 01 (831) 335 1217
where you can find many more teachings and other interesting material.