Kamma According to the Buddha

0:02 Okay, maybe we can get started. So tonight's talk is going to be on the idea of kamma. Kamma, also known as karma. One is a Pāli word, the other one is a Sanskrit word. And it's a very fundamental idea in the Buddhist teachings. Really important, really core idea. You find that when the Buddha talks about Karma is an aspect of right view, to think about the world in terms of kamma and it's also part of what awakening is about. Report an error in the passage at 0:02 Highlight the passage at 0:02

0:40 When you come to the very end of the path and you have the deep insights into the nature of the world, one of the insights you have is the insight into kamma. So this is very fundamental, part of the correct understanding of how the world operates. Report an error in the passage at 0:40 Highlight the passage at 0:40

0:59 Basic meaning of kamma is action. It does not mean result. There's action and there's result. It does not mean the result of action. It actually means the action itself. I don't know if you have noticed that very often when people talk about kamma, they say, that's my kamma. And very often they mean like, oh, I'm experiencing this bad result. And that's kind of kamma. That's not what it means according to the Buddha. Report an error in the passage at 0:59 Highlight the passage at 0:59

1:26 It means the... Actions that then lead to something later on. It is not the result. It is the cause of something that comes later on. So kamma means action. It's how we live our lives. It's all the activities that we do. Body, speech and mind. Also mind, right? Mind is also kamma. That's kind of really interesting because if kamma is very important it means that we also have to deal with the mind as well. Report an error in the passage at 1:26 Highlight the passage at 1:26

1:58 This is part and parcel of the Buddhist practice and without that you won't actually really get anywhere on the Buddhist path. That's why we meditate and all of these kind of things because we have to somehow deal with the mind. So I'm going to talk about kamma because it is quite a It's a very complex topic. There's lots of misunderstandings in the world, especially also in the Buddhist world, about what kamma, how it really works. Report an error in the passage at 1:58 Highlight the passage at 1:58

2:25 And of course, very importantly, how can we make use of kamma in our practice to make it a powerful aspect of how we live our lives, to actually increase, if you like, the speed of the path and how to make the path work properly. So this is kind of the idea behind this talk. Clarify some of the issues, understand what is going on, and then see how we can use that to actually improve our spiritual practice, if you like. Report an error in the passage at 2:25 Highlight the passage at 2:25

2:58 So, is that okay? Yeah, if it's not okay, then it's going to be that anyway, so you've got to deal with that somehow. So we'll see what happens. If it's not okay, yeah, okay. So this is what it's all about. So I want to start to talk about kamma a little bit from a historical perspective. Because obviously the word kamma existed before the time of the Buddha. Report an error in the passage at 2:58 Highlight the passage at 2:58

3:22 It's kind of one of these ancient Indian words, karma or kamma. And the Buddha... He took it on and he gave it kind of a new meaning. I often mention that here when I come on these Friday night talks, that one of the kind of revolutionary things about the Buddha, he took the Indian culture at the time, which included a certain language, certain ways of doing things, and then he kind of reinvented it. Report an error in the passage at 3:22 Highlight the passage at 3:22

3:49 He gave everything a new meaning. The thing didn't have, after the Buddha came along, everything changed in India. Buddhism became a very powerful religion in India later on. It was probably the most powerful religion in terms of numbers and effect on society for hundreds of years until Hinduism or Brahmanism kind of made its way back in again and Buddhism got kind of a little bit on the sidelines after that. Report an error in the passage at 3:49 Highlight the passage at 3:49

4:18 So it had a very, very powerful impact on Indian religion in general and Indian society in general. So what did it mean before Buddhism? And before Buddhism, kamma basically referred to ritual. Yeah, the rituals were what the Brahmins did, it's what the Brahmins are very famous for. When you go to the, you know, you want to get, have a funeral rites or whatever, especially funeral rites or married rites or any kind of... Report an error in the passage at 4:18 Highlight the passage at 4:18

4:49 Passage in life, you have to go through. You will go to the Brahmins of India, the kind of the priestly caste. These days they consider themselves the highest caste. In those days they were kind of a little bit lower down, but basically some of the top castes in India. And so you go to the Brahmins, you ask for the funeral rites, because if you do the funeral rites in the right way, then your mom or dad is going to go to heaven. Report an error in the passage at 4:49 Highlight the passage at 4:49

5:15 Yeah, then they go to the right place. You get the funeral rites. wrong, you may go down instead of going up. You don't want your mum and dad to go down. You want them to rise up. And so the Brahmins, they had this monopoly on the right rituals. They're doing the rituals in the right order, knowing the right verses and spells to proclaim during the ritual. And because they had a monopoly on that, they made a lot of money that way. Report an error in the passage at 5:15 Highlight the passage at 5:15

5:42 That's kind of how they lived their life. That's kind of how the Brahmins survived. And I think many Even today, there probably are Brahmins who survive in that particular way. So they had a monopoly in rituals, and that was the idea of Kama. Perform the ritual in the right way, your mom and dad goes to heaven, get the dodgy priest, and your mom and dad are in serious trouble. Report an error in the passage at 5:42 Highlight the passage at 5:42

6:05 That's kind of how these things are. So that was how it was. And then the Buddha comes along. And the Buddha says, well, it's not really as simple as that. It's not just really about rituals. Yeah, okay, rituals may be nice. And I would recommend all of you to do a little bit of rituals. It's nice to do rituals. Yeah, rituals often give life meaning. We do rituals anyway. Every society has its rituals. You shake hands or whatever it is, it's like a ritual. Report an error in the passage at 6:05 Highlight the passage at 6:05

6:36 When you do small talk, it's a bit like a ritual. And in the Dhamma, we also have rituals. But rituals have to have meaning. They have to be used in a positive way to be powerful. And when you use them in a good way, they become really useful part of the spiritual path. But it shouldn't be empty. And this was the problem with these Brahmanical rituals. They weren't necessarily meaningful in that particular way. And so the Buddha said rituals is all kind of okay, but kamma in the Buddhism actually It means something very different. And what it means in Buddhism, it basically means the intention that lies behind the action. Report an error in the passage at 6:36 Highlight the passage at 6:36

7:22 Intention is what is important. It is not whether you step on that ant. If you step on an ant by accident, okay, it's not a big deal. But if you deliberately step on that ant, well then, it is a problem. Then you have done something bad. Intention is a critical thing. And the Buddha says in the suttas, he says, It says, Report an error in the passage at 7:22 Highlight the passage at 7:22

7:45 This is one of these Pāli phrases that you will hear quite often because it kind of defines what kamma means. It is intention, monks, that I call kamma. And this is straight out of the suttas, out of the word of the Buddha. And so this changes things. Instead of this focus on rituals, it changes the whole idea of action. Report an error in the passage at 7:45 Highlight the passage at 7:45

8:13 Two, morality instead. Once we are dealing with intention, we are dealing with morality. Actions are either moral or immoral depending on the intention that drives that action. This is what the Buddha is saying. Going from ritual to an ethical code that then the Buddha said was kind of the core, one of the cores or part of the backbone of the Buddha's teachings. Report an error in the passage at 8:13 Highlight the passage at 8:13

8:42 So what What then does that actually mean? In what sense is intention and ethical or intentional actions, in what sense are they ethical? It depends on the quality of that intention. So intentions can come from a good place or from a bad place. And that place that we are coming from is usually called motivation. Report an error in the passage at 8:42 Highlight the passage at 8:42

9:04 You're motivated by something. You can be motivated by positive things. You can be motivated by compassion, by kindness, by generosity, or you can be motivated by negative things, by ill will, or greed, or delusion, or fear, or these kind of things. And if you're motivated by something negative, it's called bad kamma. And if it's motivated by something positive, it is called good kamma. Report an error in the passage at 9:04 Highlight the passage at 9:04

9:36 And the point that the Buddha is making is that these things have results in the future. The kamma is not the result. The kamma is the cause. But there will be future results of these things. And those results are, if you're making bad kamma, it will have a negative result in the future. It will experience the result as painful feelings, as negative mindsets, some kind of suffering in your life. Whereas if you live in the good way, you will feel positive results from that kamma, from that volitional action. Report an error in the passage at 9:36 Highlight the passage at 9:36

10:11 That's the basic idea of kamma, is the relationship between your intention and later how you feel. Intention and feeling very closely related to each other. That is the basic idea of kamma. And can you know that? People will sometimes say, oh yeah, okay, that sounds good, but do I have to believe that? Maybe it's true, maybe not. But you can actually feel that right here and now. Report an error in the passage at 10:11 Highlight the passage at 10:11

10:40 This is one of the points I often like to make about the idea of kamma. The Buddha talks about kamma that ripens in your next life or ripens in future lives. But he also says that to some extent the kamma ripens right here and now in this very life. If you look at your mind, If you feel what happens when you do something good or something bad, straight away there will be an emotional response or a feeling response to what you're doing. Report an error in the passage at 10:40 Highlight the passage at 10:40

11:10 Do something a bit Not very nice to somebody. Tell someone off at the wrong time or whatever. Or act in a way, even have a bad thought sometimes. Yeah, I hate that person. Wow, they're always bad. Wait. And then you feel what that feels like. And actually it doesn't feel good. It drains your energy. And afterwards you may think, why did I think that silly thought? Report an error in the passage at 11:10 Highlight the passage at 11:10

11:32 And you feel kind of bad about it. And so there is this immediate feeling usually that is an immediate repercussion of how we live, how we act, or how we think. And if you understand that connection right here in this life, you also understand how that connection works in the larger scope of things, even maybe from one life to the next one, or carrying on for a long time into the future. Report an error in the passage at 11:32 Highlight the passage at 11:32

12:01 It is not that hard to understand why your intention must be related to how you feel about yourself. Investigate that, because when you investigate that, you start to understand what these laws of kamma really are about. And you get motivated to be a better person. Would you like to feel more happy feelings? Or would you like to have more suffering in your life? Report an error in the passage at 12:01 Highlight the passage at 12:01

12:27 This is your choice. And usually when I ask this question, very few people raise their hand if I can please have some more suffering. Usually plenty enough suffering already. Most people want to be more happy. And so if you can see that connection... Between your intention and how you feel about yourself, it motivates you to live better. And the more you accumulate these negative intentions, building things up, it's like you are accumulating suffering. Report an error in the passage at 12:27 Highlight the passage at 12:27

12:55 And often it leads to very painful results in the long run. This is what the Buddha really is talking about. So this is the idea of kamma in Buddhism. But The Buddha had many reasons for teaching this doctrine of kamma and I want to go through some of these reasons so we can understand the broader idea of why this is such an important teaching in the suttas, in the word of the Buddha. Report an error in the passage at 12:55 Highlight the passage at 12:55

13:23 And one of the reasons why the Buddha talks about kamma is of course because it's true. It is according to the Buddha, this is how the world works. And the Buddha always starts by talking about things that relate to reality, relate to the way the world works. So it has to be true. This is kind of the starting point. So this is always the Buddha. Everything he says, he says for himself, is true. It is not otherwise. So this is kind of an important point. Report an error in the passage at 13:23 Highlight the passage at 13:23

13:55 But that is not enough for the Buddha to teach. It also has to be useful. Truth is itself, it's not a sufficient reason for giving a particular teaching. It also has to be useful. So how is it useful? Now the obvious thing that many of you will kind of know straight away, very often the main reason why we talk about kamma in Buddhism and why many people understand it, is because it leads to a good rebirth. Report an error in the passage at 13:55 Highlight the passage at 13:55

14:26 If you put together a lot of good kamma, it leads to a good future existence. So is that a good reason to live well because you want to have a good rebirth? What if you can become a deva? Devas are these kind of Buddhist kind of gods or godlings or spirits or... Angels or whatever you want to call them. We don't really have a kind of perfect English translation for these Pāli words. Yeah, but they're kind of higher kind of beings. They're a bit like all of us here. Report an error in the passage at 14:26 Highlight the passage at 14:26

14:57 They're not very different from us, except that they have more happiness and they shine and they kind of have transparent bodies and have a bit more power and they come down sometimes to help human beings. Report an error in the passage at 14:57 Highlight the passage at 14:57

15:09 Would you like to have some help from the devas? I'll tell you how. Be kind, be good, and then the devas might help you sometimes. Report an error in the passage at 15:09 Highlight the passage at 15:09

15:18 Most people would like to have a good rebirth, to become a deva. Wouldn't that be cool to be this kind of god? And you kind of fare around and you are happy and you enjoy yourself, you have a lot of pleasures and you have all kinds of things. Wouldn't that be fun? Sometimes one of the problems in Buddhism is that we think that having the idea of being reborn as a deva is somehow inferior. Report an error in the passage at 15:18 Highlight the passage at 15:18

15:48 I don't want to be a deva in my next life. I've been told by my kind of Buddhist group that being a deva is bad. You want to be reborn as a human being because then you can come back to Dhammaloka and practice more. Report an error in the passage at 15:48 Highlight the passage at 15:48

16:01 Actually one lifetime in Dhammaloka is enough. You don't want to have to come back to Dhammaloka again. There's a limit to how many times you want to be at Dhammaloka Center. It's a great place but still there is a limit to how often you want to come back here. Report an error in the passage at 16:01 Highlight the passage at 16:01

16:15 And that is one of those kind of strange legends and myths in Buddhism that somehow it is bad to get reborn as a deva but actually we should be reborn as human beings because then we can practice better. But there isn't really much evidence for that. Report an error in the passage at 16:15 Highlight the passage at 16:15

16:31 If you read the suttas, the word of the Buddha, he doesn't say that. He says, okay, sometimes he teaches the gods and the gods become enlightened because he teaches them. There are a few stories like that in the suttas. Or he teaches the humans and they have really good results from that. So there isn't really much. Report an error in the passage at 16:31 Highlight the passage at 16:31

17:04 Guide yourself in the right direction. I want to be a human being. How can I be a human being? Human being, human being. You kind of try to guide yourself and you mess it all up and you end up somewhere worse because you have no idea what you're doing. This is the problem. Often we have no idea what we're doing anyway. We try to do something and it becomes worse. So enjoy your death. Report an error in the passage at 17:04 Highlight the passage at 17:04

17:26 death. Relax on your deathbed. Enjoy the journey onward. It's a far better way of doing it. Just be peaceful. Don't try too hard to be this or to be that. Because usually we don't know how to do these things anyway. And then, wherever you go, you carry on practicing in that particular place. That's kind of the ideal way. Report an error in the passage at 17:26 Highlight the passage at 17:26

17:48 And then you get reborn in heaven. If that's what happens to you. And then what do you do once you're reborn in heaven? But once you're there, you have to go to the Buddhist corner of heaven, right? So heaven has like the Christian corner, the Muslim corner, the atheist corner and the Buddhist corner. Report an error in the passage at 17:48 Highlight the passage at 17:48

18:07 You go to the Buddhist corner and then you go there and you listen to the gods, yeah, they're kind of talking to each other and then you hear, wow, what is this god saying? And then you recognize the Buddha's teaching because lo and behold, they're teaching the Buddha's teaching in heaven. Report an error in the passage at 18:07 Highlight the passage at 18:07

18:23 Wow, that's the Buddha's teaching. Okay, and then you know you're in the right corner of heaven and you carry on there, practicing there. That's kind of how it works. Report an error in the passage at 18:23 Highlight the passage at 18:23

18:33 Do you believe me? Basically, that's what it says in the suttas. I'm not claiming any supernormal powers or anything. I'm just saying this is what the Buddha said, how it works. If the Buddha said so, it must be true. Right? Report an error in the passage at 18:33 Highlight the passage at 18:33

18:51 Why would the Buddha say it if it wasn't true? I reckon it must be true because I'm a very faithful disciple of the Buddha. If the Buddha said so, it must be true. That's kind of how I look at things. Why wouldn't it? If the Buddha really was enlightened the way we think he was, obviously it would be true. So we shouldn't really... Report an error in the passage at 18:51 Highlight the passage at 18:51

19:10 Kind of look upon the idea of wanting a good rebirth. We shouldn't look down upon that idea. Every one of us probably wants that deep down. If you enjoy the pleasures of the world, if you enjoy nice food, if you enjoy occasional good entertainment, if you enjoy a nice relationship with somebody, if you enjoy those things, you are already inclining towards heaven. Report an error in the passage at 19:10 Highlight the passage at 19:10

19:35 Because it is that kind of enjoyment which actually leads to a heavenly rebirth. Because you get more of those kind of enjoyments. So we should never look down upon that. It's a natural human desire to be reborn in these realms. But still, it is limited. This is not really ultimately why the Buddha talks about kamma. Report an error in the passage at 19:35 Highlight the passage at 19:35

19:58 This is one kind of sub-aspect of why he talks about it. But far more important reason why he talks about kamma is because it shows you the mechanism of the idea of rebirth in the big scope of things. And the Buddha shows you that in the big scope of things, you get reborn here, you get reborn there, in various places. Sometimes you go up because you have good kamma, sometimes you go down because you have bad kamma. Report an error in the passage at 19:58 Highlight the passage at 19:58

20:26 This is like the large scope of existence, what it looks like over numerous lifetimes. And when you see that, how you're kind of like a yo-yo, yeah, ricocheting around Sangsara, going up this way, staying there for a while, then going down, yeah, and this is driven by this force or by this law of kamma. Report an error in the passage at 20:26 Highlight the passage at 20:26

20:46 That's what drives this kind of perpetual moving around from one place to another one. You start to understand what this idea... of samsaric existence. Saṃsāra is the kind of round of birth and death, what it really is about. And this is really why the Buddha teaches kamma, to understand how this samsaric existence actually works. Report an error in the passage at 20:46 Highlight the passage at 20:46

21:12 And that is kind of off-putting, when you see that. Do you really want to ricochet around saṃsāra in this way, kind of moving back and forth, seemingly largely out of control? Report an error in the passage at 21:12 Highlight the passage at 21:12

21:26 Because you might think that if there is karma, and if I do good things, I will have good results, and if I do bad things, I will have bad results. You might think, well in that case, I will just make sure I always do good things. So no worries, I will cheat the system. It's like going to the casino, yeah, and all in knowing, yeah, I'm going to get the better of the casino, yeah, easy. I just place my chips on red all the time and eventually it must land on red when the roulette wheel turns. Report an error in the passage at 21:26 Highlight the passage at 21:26

21:57 You can see I've been to casinos before, yeah, I know all these things, yeah. And eventually I will win. It doesn't work like that. The casino always wins, right? Otherwise they wouldn't be in business. Guaranteed, casinos always win. That's just the way it is. And in saṃsāra is the same thing. You can't cheat the system. And the reason why you can't cheat the system is that whether you do good kamma or bad kamma is not really in your control. Report an error in the passage at 21:57 Highlight the passage at 21:57

22:26 This is the last idea on the Buddha's Night of Awakening. It's an understanding of how this whole system of kamma making is actually out of control. It depends on who your friends are. It depends on how you've been conditioned. If you come to the Buddhist society and you have good spiritual friends, you have Kalyanamittas, then you're probably going to make good kamma and you're going to be heading in the right direction. Report an error in the passage at 22:26 Highlight the passage at 22:26

22:52 But your next life you may have bad friends. Papamitta. Evil friends that take you in the wrong direction. And it's not really under your control. It depends which country you get born into. It depends what kind of family you have. It depends on who your friends are. Because we are conditioned human beings. And ultimately, actually not even ultimately, really, we are not really in charge of these things. Report an error in the passage at 22:52 Highlight the passage at 22:52

23:17 And so you understand this larger picture of things with how kamma drives rebirth, how it all ultimately is out of control, and it changes your attitude to the world. It is no longer enough for you just to be reborn in heaven, but you understand the spiritual path is about far more than that. It is about understanding the nature of reality and eventually escaping from this whole thing, this Whole up and down movement in samsaric existence. That is ultimately what it is about. And this is why, far more important reason, why the Buddha taught the laws of kamma. Report an error in the passage at 23:17 Highlight the passage at 23:17

23:59 So that is the big picture. Now coming back to the small picture again, why the Buddha taught kamma. Because kamma, good kamma, is also part of the spiritual path. So if you want to practice the spiritual path well, part of that is making good kamma. There's a beautiful line in the Mahamangala Sutta, having previously made good merit or previously made good kamma. Report an error in the passage at 23:59 Highlight the passage at 23:59

24:32 Previous kamma is required for the spiritual path to work. So, if we want the spiritual path to work fast, the more good kamma you make, the more powerful is the spiritual path going to be. So then it becomes really important, this idea of kamma. And now I want to move this talk on to the ideas of kamma, how we can make the most of... Report an error in the passage at 24:32 Highlight the passage at 24:32

25:01 Kamma, how we can make the best possible kamma to make the spiritual path work better to our own advantage. And so this is where I want to move on to next. Now, to start this, how we can kind of think about kamma to make the most of it, I want to just say one very kind of interesting thing that the Buddha says in the suttas that I'm not sure if you have heard before, maybe some of you have. Report an error in the passage at 25:01 Highlight the passage at 25:01

25:27 And the Buddha says, This is in the Anguttanakaya somewhere, the Anguttanakaya 3, number 60, Sutta 61 I think it's called, the Titayatana Sutta. And in that Sutta the Buddha says that if everything in the world was due to kamma, if all your experiences you have now in terms of pleasure, pain and neutral feeling were due to kamma you have done in the past, there would be no escape. Report an error in the passage at 25:27 Highlight the passage at 25:27

25:58 From samsaric existence. We would be trapped. That's really interesting. If everything is due to kamma, there is no escape. Report an error in the passage at 25:58 Highlight the passage at 25:58

26:10 How can that be? Why is there no escape? Well, the reason why there is no escape is because if all your present experiences are because of things in the past, then your reaction now, because we always react to our experiences, we always react to our feelings, we are trapped in the loop. By these past actions, and when we act according to those past actions, we won't be able to act according to anything else. Report an error in the passage at 26:10 Highlight the passage at 26:10

26:38 The past actions will trap us, and they will always determine our future. And so the Buddha says, and this is therefore very important to understand how the laws of kamma work, everything is not due to past kamma. Kamma is only one factor in what determines how we experience the world and how we feel the world. And this matters enormously. Sometimes as Buddhists we think that everything is because of past kamma. Report an error in the passage at 26:38 Highlight the passage at 26:38

27:09 Oh, this is not going well for me. This is happening in my life. Please, venerable, tell me that this was, you know, what kind of bad kamma did I do in the past to deserve this? This is the kind of thing I hear all the time as a Buddhist monk. People come to our monastery. Why do they come to us? Because they suffer very often. Report an error in the passage at 27:09 Highlight the passage at 27:09

27:28 Why do you all come here? Probably because you have some suffering in your life. This is part of the reasons why we seek out a spiritual power to overcome these things. And then the question very often is, what did I do? People say, oh, what may I have done in the past? My husband left me or my wife is cheating on me or I lost my job and everything is going haywire and my kids are not behaving properly and they are doing bad things. Report an error in the passage at 27:28 Highlight the passage at 27:28

27:56 Why is everything going wrong? I must have done some bad karma in the past. Right, right? No, not necessarily. And so when we... When we talk about kamma we need to understand not everything is kamma and this is a fundamental thing to understand about how to understand our reality and it opens up possibilities for us to live in a different way when kamma does not determine all the outcomes in our existence. Report an error in the passage at 27:56 Highlight the passage at 27:56

28:26 existence. And so One of the ways of thinking about this and one of the ways that the Buddha talks about this in the suttas is to say that kamma is only one factor. Many other things in our life are things like just accidents. Accidents just happen. You go out and a car hits you in the street or you... Report an error in the passage at 28:26 Highlight the passage at 28:26

28:52 You stumble over something or whatever and you kind of hit yourself against the ceiling or whatever. Accidents just happen. This is part of life. Sometimes you get sick. Your body doesn't function properly, you get cancer, whatever. Illness is just part of being human. It is not necessarily a kamma from the past. Report an error in the passage at 28:52 Highlight the passage at 28:52

29:13 And so a large number of things that happen in our life are not necessarily related to kamma. They are related to the fact that you are a human being. Being human is kind of tough. Human beings can expect illnesses every now and again. Human beings can expect divorces every now and again. Human beings can expect your children to misbehave. That's what children do, they misbehave. Report an error in the passage at 29:13 Highlight the passage at 29:13

29:42 I know that from personal experience. When I was a child, I misbehaved as well. So I know that's very close to home. And so all of these things is what life really is about. It is not due necessarily to past kamma. And so when people come to the monastery and they say, oh, what kamma did I do? Very often the reason why they ask that question is because they want to be in control. Report an error in the passage at 29:42 Highlight the passage at 29:42

30:10 They want some kind of closure. They want some feeling that there is a good explanation in the universe for why things are happening. Because if there is a good explanation, then maybe we can avoid the causes in the future. And we can do something to avoid the same problem in the future. And that is a natural human feeling. We want to be in charge. Report an error in the passage at 30:10 Highlight the passage at 30:10

30:30 We want to feel that we are in control. And so we ask these questions. And then the problem is that it is often deluding. The problem is that you cannot just change the way you live and change the way you are and then start to become a good person and avoid doing the same mistakes and then you won't have that problem in the future. Report an error in the passage at 30:30 Highlight the passage at 30:30

30:52 Actually, you will still have that problem in the future. And the reason is because if you get reborn as a human being, this is what you can expect. And so it changes your attitude instead of coming and saying, what kama did I do? Actually... This is human existence. This is human experience. Instead of thinking, I just need to change these little habits. No, it is much worse than that. Report an error in the passage at 30:52 Highlight the passage at 30:52

31:18 It is much more problematic. I need to get out of this samsaric existence. Just like I was saying before. Because the problem is not what you have done specifically. The problem is that you got reborn in the first place. That is the real problem. And it kind of sounds funny, but it's not really all that funny. Report an error in the passage at 31:18 Highlight the passage at 31:18

31:46 I shouldn't be laughing if it isn't funny. So this is kind of the idea. You can see how little ways of reframing what these things are about changes your entire attitude to how we deal with these kind of things. And this is one of those ways of rethinking things. isn't it? Report an error in the passage at 31:46 Highlight the passage at 31:46

32:09 Very important way and I want to bring this in now before I forget about it. One of the kind of dangers that sometimes, one of the mistakes we sometimes make in the Buddhist world. We see someone who is really unfortunate, who is suffering a lot. Yeah, maybe they are handicapped or they are not very intelligent or they have a car accident. Report an error in the passage at 32:09 Highlight the passage at 32:09

32:27 Yeah, it's their bad karma from the past. Yeah, now they're reaping the result. It's their own fault. I'm not going to have any compassion. Does that sound like a Buddhist response? No, yeah, no, you're quite right. You're shaking your head. Well done. Yeah, you have kind of got the right idea there. It is not a Buddhist response at all, right? It's a terrible response. Report an error in the passage at 32:27 Highlight the passage at 32:27

32:50 But this is very common in kind of Buddhist communities. People think in this particular way. They made a mistake in the past. It's their problem. So, you know, I'm not going to deal with it. They're going to have to sort it out themselves. It's completely the wrong way to think about things. If you think like that, Report an error in the passage at 32:50 Highlight the passage at 32:50

33:17 but the problem is that maybe someone else's bad karma is ripening right now or maybe it isn't even bad karma as I mentioned a minute ago maybe it's just the fact that they are a human being tomorrow Your bad kamma may ripen. Tomorrow your human nature is going to show itself because you go to the wrong place at the wrong time. Report an error in the passage at 33:17 Highlight the passage at 33:17

33:41 You step in front of a car or whatever it is. And suddenly you are going to be the one who suffers. So it is completely misguided to think that these people are somehow different from you. We are all in the same boat. We have all made bad karma in the past. We are all vulnerable human beings right now. It can happen to any one of us. You, we need to have compassion for everyone in the world who suffers. Report an error in the passage at 33:41 Highlight the passage at 33:41

34:10 And when you have compassion for other people's When they suffer, you will also be able to have compassion for yourself when you fall into suffering, which inevitably you will. Why? Because you are a human being. That is the right way to think about things. These are not things that are in our control. Report an error in the passage at 34:10 Highlight the passage at 34:10

34:31 If they really were under your control, well, then maybe we could blame other people for their stupidity or whatever, but they are not really under our control. We all end up doing stupid things. Why? Because of conditioning, because of circumstances, not because we want to be evil, we want to do bad things. Report an error in the passage at 34:31 Highlight the passage at 34:31

34:53 So have compassion, for goodness sake. When you see someone in the world, one of the things I always love to do, when I see another person who is different from me, and this is a very powerful reflection that I try to use all the time, I see someone who is suffering, I see someone maybe in Perth who is kind of sleeping rough, someone who is a drug addict, someone who is mentally unstable, maybe suffering psychologically in a very deep way. Report an error in the passage at 34:53 Highlight the passage at 34:53

35:21 I look at that person and I try to think, that is me. I have been like that in the past. I will be like that in the future unless I get out of this whole idea of rebirth or suffering. And when I see myself in that other person, Suddenly it changes things dramatically. Then you make a human connection with that other person. You no longer dismiss them. It's no longer possible not to have compassion. Report an error in the passage at 35:21 Highlight the passage at 35:21

35:50 Because if it is you, you have to have compassion for that person. Otherwise, you have no compassion for yourself. And so you do that with everyone, regardless of which country they come from, regardless of the culture, regardless of the gender, regardless of whether they are intelligent or stupid or whatever they are. Report an error in the passage at 35:50 Highlight the passage at 35:50

36:10 And it opens up the door of compassion in a very beautiful way. And I try to the best of my ability. Of course, I fail, because I'm human after all. Report an error in the passage at 36:10 Highlight the passage at 36:10

36:21 So I failed but I tried to look at the world in this way and it creates much more connection in the world than otherwise it would. So always have compassion, always have understanding, always have mettā and karuṇā, these beautiful qualities. Report an error in the passage at 36:21 Highlight the passage at 36:21

36:37 So there is a third way I want to talk about the idea of how kamma is not really deterministic. It is much more open to change than what you may think. And one of the reasons why it is not deterministic is because often we don't distinguish between, on the one hand, kamma, and on the other hand, habits. Report an error in the passage at 36:37 Highlight the passage at 36:37

37:05 Habits and kamma are not the same thing. So sometimes people come and they come and say, well, I have been born in this family. Why have I been reborn in this family? And they will say, oh, it must be my kamma. Yeah, maybe we did bad kamma together in the past. And we did bad kamma together. It ripens now. We have to live together. Report an error in the passage at 37:05 Highlight the passage at 37:05

37:26 But you will be surprised to hear that the idea of making kamma together is not a Buddhist way of thinking about things. We don't make kamma together. Kamma is individual. Intentions are within you. You cannot make... You don't have a common intention with someone else. They may happen to have the same intention as you have right now, but maybe not. It's very, very hard to know. Report an error in the passage at 37:26 Highlight the passage at 37:26

37:51 Kamma is individual. We don't have kamma that brings us together in that way. However, we have habits. We have attachments to people. And because you have attachments to people in one life, when you get reborn, quite possibly you get reborn in that same family in the future because attachments, Bring us together. People we feel something in common with. We tend to hang out with them. That's why Buddhists hang out with Buddhists. Report an error in the passage at 37:51 Highlight the passage at 37:51

38:21 We hang out with the kind of people we are like, that are similar to us. And so kamma and habit are quite different. So even though you cannot change your kamma from the past, you can always change your habits. And this is one of the most important things that we do in Buddhism, is changing our habits. Because sometimes our habits aren't wholesome. Sometimes we have been brought up to kind of think in a certain stupid way. Report an error in the passage at 38:21 Highlight the passage at 38:21

38:52 Sometimes we have been brought up to have anger towards certain people. Sometimes we have been brought up to be greedy because we all know that greed is good, right? You know, those kind of silly kind of ideas they sometimes have. Greed is good. That was a... A movie called Wall Street, Gordon Gekko or something like that, who said greed is good. It was actually based apparently on a real life example. Report an error in the passage at 38:52 Highlight the passage at 38:52

39:17 It was a fellow called Ivan Boesky, I think. He was kind of one of these Wall Street traders back in the 1980s. This shows you how old I am. And he apparently coined this phrase, greed is good. He toured around the American university polluting the young American minds. Report an error in the passage at 39:17 Highlight the passage at 39:17

39:37 That's bad, right? Polluting the young minds. He was trying to detoxify all minds, actually young and old and middle-aged or whatever. He was going around doing the opposite, polluting the mind. Greed is good. This was kind of the idea. Greed is bad. It's a really bad idea. And it's kind of hard to imagine how people can say these kind of things and how deluded that actually is. So these are the habits we need to change. Report an error in the passage at 39:37 Highlight the passage at 39:37

40:06 Greed is very unhelpful. Greed is small. It leads to a small mind. It leads to fear. It leads to me against others. That's what greed leads to. If you want to have a broad mind where it encompasses other people around you, greed is your enemy. Greed is a very negative thing. Anger is a negative thing. So we need to change these habits. It's a fundamental thing and they can be changed. They are not the result of kamma in the past. Report an error in the passage at 40:06 Highlight the passage at 40:06

40:34 They are just It's a result of conditioning and conditioning can always be changed. It is hard work. You need to exert yourself again and again and again to be able to do that. But it can be done down the line if you do it. That is the good news about overcoming habits. So distinction between habit and kamma is actually very useful because it allows you to change. Report an error in the passage at 40:34 Highlight the passage at 40:34

40:59 It allows you to become a different kind of person. Report an error in the passage at 40:59 Highlight the passage at 40:59

41:06 These are some of the ideas, some of the distinctions, some of the different ways of thinking about things. I'm not sure what that is. Maybe a ghost? I'm not sure. Anyway, so how, what can we... Do then, the last thing the Buddha said, remember I mentioned before, about kamma, is that it helps us on the spiritual path. I've now talked about some of the misconceptions of kamma, some of the dangers we fall into. Report an error in the passage at 41:06 Highlight the passage at 41:06

41:36 It is not deterministic. There's a lot of things that we can do to dilute that kamma, to move forward in various ways. So how can we really move forward in the best possible way? How can we make use of that Buddha's last argument, the idea, make good kamma to enable the spiritual path, to enhance your spiritual practice? Report an error in the passage at 41:36 Highlight the passage at 41:36

41:59 How can we do that? Well, obviously, we want to do good things by body, speech and mind, right? As I mentioned before, it is the intention that matters. It is not just doing the right thing, but your intention is very important. And so that means that if you make those intentions more clear in your mind, more powerful, it will also increase the amount of good karma that you are making. Report an error in the passage at 41:59 Highlight the passage at 41:59

42:28 And if you reduce the intentions behind any bad acts, it means even your bad actions won't be as powerful. So how can we do that? Come back to the idea of what motivates you, what drives the intention which then in turn drives the action. So purify those motivations. And as you purify your motivations in life, you will purify your intentions which then will purify your actions. Report an error in the passage at 42:28 Highlight the passage at 42:28

42:59 So whatever you do in life, When you do an act of kindness, when you say something beautiful to someone else, if you do an act of generosity to someone, put more love into it. Put more compassion into it. Put more kindness into it. Yeah, I really want to give this. Understand that the recipient you're giving to is worthy of your kindness. Report an error in the passage at 42:59 Highlight the passage at 42:59

43:24 Why are they worthy of your kindness? Because everyone is worthy of your kindness. Everyone wants to have a better life. Everyone wants to be happy. Put a lot of kindness into it. And the more mettā and karuṇā and kindness and compassion you put into your actions, the more you imbue them with these beautiful qualities, the more powerful is your good kamma because you're purifying the motivation which is at the very source of what good kamma is about. Report an error in the passage at 43:24 Highlight the passage at 43:24

43:54 So imbue all your life with these qualities. Make your life into a path of kindness. Mettā, mettā really means something like kindness or friendliness or love. All of these words are really translations of the word mettā. Make that the mainstay of your life. Imbue everything you do with that. Ultimately, you want to imbue your thoughts with these things so that when you think about other people, you're coming from a sense that you want to be kind towards others. Report an error in the passage at 43:54 Highlight the passage at 43:54

44:26 And if you cannot be kind because someone is really difficult, at least you can have compassion for them. Kindness and compassion should ideally be the only motivating forces in your life. Never coming from greed, never coming from ill will, always from kindness and compassion. And the more you imbue your life with these beautiful qualities, the more powerful your kamma is going to be. Report an error in the passage at 44:26 Highlight the passage at 44:26

44:53 So when you come here to Dhammaloka, learn to imbue your life with these beautiful qualities. And part of that can be to do some meditation, some mettā meditation. Sometimes people find it very hard to do ordinary breath meditation because the breath is very subtle, can be very hard to follow and you may end up falling asleep or you may end up thinking about all kinds of things before you know it you're all over the world except for here in Dhammaloka even though this is where you actually are, your mind is kind of who knows where your mind is. Report an error in the passage at 44:53 Highlight the passage at 44:53

45:28 Have you ever had that experience before? Probably. If you haven't, wow, miracle, well done, that would be really impressive. Actually it is Impossible, so I probably wouldn't believe you if you said that. So do some of that mettā meditation. Learn the idea of wishing everyone in the world happiness and well-being. Sit down, close your eyes, wish everyone in the world. Report an error in the passage at 45:28 Highlight the passage at 45:28

45:56 May everyone in the world, may all beings be happy. May all beings be well. Allow that to come from your heart. And when you turn your mind All beings are worthy of... you understand, you can't really have any enemies anymore, because if you have enemies it's impossible to wish everyone well-being, it transforms your attitude to the world you understand that all beings are worthy of this well-wishing, because everyone in the world wants to be happy and if someone is living in a stupid way, it's because they don't understand, not because they want to suffer or because they are are deliberately deliberately deliberately stupid. They're just deluded. Report an error in the passage at 45:56 Highlight the passage at 45:56

46:45 And so this is kind of the final Final idea of Kama. Imbue it with as many powerful and beautiful motivations as you can. Moment after moment, hour to hour, day after day, year after year. And if you get reborn, lifetime after lifetime. And as you do that, then you are really purifying the spiritual path to the maximum. Report an error in the passage at 46:45 Highlight the passage at 46:45

47:15 So remember why it is that you should Take the idea of kamma very seriously in your life. First of all, because the Buddha says it is a description of reality. This is what the world actually looks like from the viewpoint of an enlightened mind. Secondly, it will lead to a good rebirth. Don't dismiss the idea of a good rebirth as some kind of lesser desire. It's okay. Report an error in the passage at 47:15 Highlight the passage at 47:15

47:45 It is human to want a good rebirth. And because you are human, it's perfectly acceptable. Thirdly, it explains to you how the larger cycle of death and rebirth functions in the long run, and how it's a system that is largely out of control. And kamma shows you how the system actually works. And finally, living in a good way, producing good kamma, is a very important aspect of the spiritual path. Report an error in the passage at 47:45 Highlight the passage at 47:45

48:13 So please, take it. Really, really seriously in your life. And if you do that, it will be a great blessing for you and also a great blessing for all the people around you. So that is my little talk on kamma this evening. Report an error in the passage at 48:13 Highlight the passage at 48:13

48:34 Okay, everyone. So if you wish to ask any questions or anything, now is the time. Report an error in the passage at 48:34 Highlight the passage at 48:34

48:51 Good evening, Venerable. Okay, where are you? I can't see anyone. Over there. Okay, good. Please, great. Hi. When it comes to karma and this idea of purifying your motivations, when you were training and learning as a monk and learning this definition of karma and noticing the wrong view that you had, was it more of the process of going through Your motivations, so for example, like why you go to work, why you do things, and then looking at how that was ripening, creating fruit, where the question essentially I'm trying to get to is that how did you begin to start noticing your karma and your personal ripening of good and bad in this purifying process? Report an error in the passage at 48:51 Highlight the passage at 48:51

49:52 Right, yeah, so that was... Basically what I was talking about fairly early on in the talk, and this is this idea that you can almost feel that when you have a negative thought or negative do something else, you can feel that there's a bad feeling that goes with that. And when you do something truly kind, actually it's really uplifting. You tend to have a good feeling when you do something kind towards someone else. And so it's noticed in that correlation right in the present between how you... Report an error in the passage at 49:52 Highlight the passage at 49:52

50:21 How you think now, how you intend now, and the effect it has on you. That, I think, is often the most transformative kind of thing. To me, that became very obvious fairly quickly, that that's actually how it works. Sometimes you can do an act of kindness towards somebody, like giving someone a gift, and it can feel incredibly uplifting, something very simple. Report an error in the passage at 50:21 Highlight the passage at 50:21

50:43 And you think, wow, this is the power of these things. And then you start reading the suttas. You start to see how the Buddha connects these things, your actions, with your meditation practice. There's a direct link there. And then you start to understand the connection between kamma and your meditation. This is why the Buddha talks about things like the recollection of your generosity or the recollection of your virtue. Report an error in the passage at 50:43 Highlight the passage at 50:43

51:07 Because that then becomes the... engine which allows you to experience joy in meditation and peace and all the positive things in your meditation practice. So you start to see this from different angles. You see it in your meditation because you can use the good kamma in the meditation and you see a direct connection in the here and now between your intention and how you feel straight away. Report an error in the passage at 51:07 Highlight the passage at 51:07

51:31 So as a practice actually say recording or writing down or noticing throughout your day those sort of positive thoughts rightening into positive intentions you'd recommend? You don't have to write it down. You can if you want to I suppose as a kind of initial up to you. But yeah just noticing it is what is most important. Okay. Thank you very much. Great. Report an error in the passage at 51:31 Highlight the passage at 51:31

52:06 Ajahn Brahmali, thanks for the wonderful deep talk on karma. Just now, you mentioned that our karma Karma cannot be, cannot be... Report an error in the passage at 52:06 Highlight the passage at 52:06

52:22 You cannot remove the karma. So that's what my understanding is too. But Ajahn Brahmali, you were saying too, if we keep doing good things, we can delay the negative karma. Delay, push, push, push, push it back. You can do better than delaying. You can dilute it. That's what the Buddha says. You can dilute it. That's what he says in the sutta. Report an error in the passage at 52:22 Highlight the passage at 52:22

52:49 You can dilute it like a lot. I forgot to mention that actually. He has this beautiful simile of the lump of salt. I'm sure you know that simile because you've been around for a while. You put a lump of salt in a glass of water and the water becomes undrinkable because it's so incredibly salty. Of course, the bitterness, or the saltiness of the water that signifies the result of the kamma, the salt is the action, the kamma, and the bitterness or the saltiness is the result very very Take the same lump of salt, the same bad kamma, and you chuck it in the Swan River. Report an error in the passage at 52:49 Highlight the passage at 52:49

53:26 And you taste it afterwards. Actually, Swan River isn't really fresh water, is it? It doesn't really work. Chuck it in the fresh water somewhere. I've never tasted the water from the Swan River, but I can imagine it must be brackish. But you put it in a fresh water, a large lake or a pond, and you can barely taste it. So you can dilute it enormously. Report an error in the passage at 53:26 Highlight the passage at 53:26

53:51 One of the places he talks about that is in the development of mettā. If you develop mettā all the way, the Buddha says that you overcome all limited actions that were there beforehand. Limited actions are actions that are related to the sense sphere. Actions that kind of ripen in some kind of pain or suffering that is completely gone when you develop mettā all the way and so in your next life you will get reborn none of that will actually remain it may come back in later lives but at least in that life it will be completely gone thanks Report an error in the passage at 53:51 Highlight the passage at 53:51

54:27 Angulimala you know. Angulimala, okay. Yeah, you know the bad karma. He kill people, he get the fingers and he put $1,999, okay? Yeah. And towards the end, he also gain enlightenment. Yeah. Mm. I was just thinking he was pushing it back, this thing, or maybe it dissolves in it. Right. So he had bad kamma. He also had very good kamma. Report an error in the passage at 54:27 Highlight the passage at 54:27

54:48 So he was able to overcome that. Very, very powerful sutta and very, very interesting. It shows that you should never feel or think that you have made so much bad kamma that there's no way forward. There's always a way forward. And sometimes I hear people despair, oh, I've done so many bad things, it's terrible, I'm going to go and get a bad rebirth. Never think like that. You have to turn around, and if you turn around, you can overcome that, like Angulimala. Report an error in the passage at 54:48 Highlight the passage at 54:48

55:13 So thank you, Eddie. So it's important to build up the good karma banks? Absolutely, very, very important. So carry on with that, Eddie. Thank you very much. You'll be okay. Thank you Report an error in the passage at 55:13 Highlight the passage at 55:13

55:34 very much for this beautiful talk. My question is, sometimes you take an action that the intention is not to hurt anyone, but it still does hurt someone. So I was wondering how do you navigate that? Okay, so this is a good question and it's a kind of thing that when the Buddha... He kind of lays out his whole ethical scheme. It usually starts off by saying you shouldn't do things that hurt others or yourself or both. Report an error in the passage at 55:34 Highlight the passage at 55:34

56:11 You should do things that are beneficial for all three, right? This is kind of one of the things that he says. But then, as you say, sometimes we don't know. We do our very best. We have really good intentions. Still, sometimes people get hurt. And so then the Buddha has a second way of talking about ethical conduct, and that is looking at your motivation. The motivation is ultimately what matters. Report an error in the passage at 56:11 Highlight the passage at 56:11

56:34 And so your job is really to know that you're coming from a good place. And if you are coming from a good place, it's really all you can do at the end of the day. Sometimes it will still hurt other people, but for the main part, it will be a good result for other people. So I guess you... Do your very best. Come from as pure a place as possible you can within, as much compassion and love that you can muster. And at the same time, try to learn from those experiences where maybe you go wrong. Report an error in the passage at 56:34 Highlight the passage at 56:34

57:08 Maybe you can also learn something from those at the same time. But in the end, you will always make those kind of mistakes. It's impossible to avoid those kind of mistakes. So don't be upset with yourself if you do that. Have compassion for yourself as well. Then you're going to be doing the right thing, I reckon. Report an error in the passage at 57:08 Highlight the passage at 57:08

57:25 Thank you. My question is when you are choosing or when you are acting kindly Report an error in the passage at 57:25 Highlight the passage at 57:25

58:07 How did I choose who to help and why couldn't I help everyone with my kindness? So no matter how kind you are, you're always left with a feeling that you haven't been kind enough. Report an error in the passage at 58:07 Highlight the passage at 58:07

58:22 Yeah, so there is a way out of that dilemma actually. You'd be surprised to hear that. There is a way out. So you're right, in terms of actions and speech we can only be kind to so many people. There's just a limit to what our human capabilities are limited. However, what you can do is develop the mettā as a mental thing. Report an error in the passage at 58:22 Highlight the passage at 58:22

58:44 And that can be unlimited. And if you have an unlimited mind in terms of the mettā, the kindness, the love within, then all your actions and speech will come out in the right way as a consequence. You will still have to choose because you can never reach out to everyone, but you will never feel inadequate within. You will always feel fully adequate because your mind is fully immersed in that feeling of good qualities. Report an error in the passage at 58:44 Highlight the passage at 58:44

59:11 That is the way forward. Thank you. Report an error in the passage at 59:11 Highlight the passage at 59:11

59:15 Okay here. Please let other people get a chance, first of all. Thank you, Ajahn. I remember there is a statement in the suttas, I think, the Buddha has said, rather than, or better than giving a dana to the Buddha and 500 dharmas, it's better to do a mettā. mettā and loving-kindness for a fraction of a second, something like that. Yeah, it's the Vellama Sutta and Guru Nanakaya 9.20, I think, yeah, yeah, yeah. Report an error in the passage at 59:15 Highlight the passage at 59:15

59:55 So, Vellama Sutta is pretty well, so anyway, please carry on. The general tendency in the Buddhist community here as well as everywhere is to offer dharma to monks and everybody. Very, very well. They do it so hard. Work hard on it and then do their best. So can you give some advice to such people? Can you also do some mettā before that or focus on your intention? What is the intention of that? Report an error in the passage at 59:55 Highlight the passage at 59:55

1:00:31 Is it to fill the... The dharma, you mean? The monks and nuns, or is it some method that generates that? What is the background? Thank you for that question. How can they make better benefit out of it? So that sutta you're quoting actually goes through a long sequence of various kinds of gifts. It starts off, I think, with an animal, or maybe, I can't remember exactly where it starts off. It goes all the way to both saṅghas headed by the Buddha. Report an error in the passage at 1:00:31 Highlight the passage at 1:00:31

1:01:03 Copyright © 2020 Mooji Media Ltd. All Rights Reserved. No part of this recording may be reproduced Also not how it works. Going for refuge obviously means really going for refuge. It means like in an emotional way where you really are invested in the Buddha Dhamma Saṅgha. It is not a superficial thing of just bowing down like a ritual. It is a really meaningful act. And then higher than that is the five precepts. Report an error in the passage at 1:01:03 Highlight the passage at 1:01:03

1:01:43 So that means keeping the five precepts consistently all the time. Even more good karma according to this. Beyond that comes this what you are saying, which is practicing mettā for a finger snap. There is a higher one still than that, seeing impermanence. That's even higher, because that of course is a deep insight into the nature of reality. So when we talk about practicing mettā for a finger snap there, it doesn't just mean any old mettā. Report an error in the passage at 1:01:43 Highlight the passage at 1:01:43

1:02:13 It doesn't just mean may all beings be happy and well. It means like a deep state of samādhi. That is why it is so powerful. So it means a very, very deep thing. But you are quite right. It obviously means something for how we should offer dharma, how we should live our life in general, in all kinds of things. Report an error in the passage at 1:02:13 Highlight the passage at 1:02:13

1:02:33 If we can imbue all our actions with more mettā, with more kindness and more compassion, our gifts, whatever we do, All of that, we would be empowered through that. And so if you go to, say you come to the monastery and you offer something to the monks, it is good to reflect about that in the right way. Report an error in the passage at 1:02:33 Highlight the passage at 1:02:33

1:02:52 Okay, why am I doing this? Well, I'm doing it because when I support the Saṅgha, I'm supporting Buddhism. I'm supporting the spread of these amazing teachings by the greatest spiritual master in human history. I'm allowing that to continue on in the world. I'm helping the sasana, the Buddhist religion, to carry on for longer by helping this. And if you look at someone like Ajahn Brahm, his talks reach millions of people around the world, literally millions of people. Report an error in the passage at 1:02:52 Highlight the passage at 1:02:52

1:03:23 He's one of the most famous monks in the world, basically. And you... Have a part in that. When those teachings reach those millions of people, they get alleviation from suffering. They experience the things on the Buddhist path. They become more happy. Some of them may get into deep meditation. Some may get profound insights. And by supporting the monastic community, by supporting Ajahn Brahm, by supporting the Dhamma and Saṅgha in general, in the whole world, you're supporting this enormous movement that is creating... Report an error in the passage at 1:03:23 Highlight the passage at 1:03:23

1:03:57 So much happiness, so much goodness in the world. Now you have a part in creating all that goodness in the world. So build up this idea in your mind of compassion for the whole world. That is really what you're doing when you're giving an act of generosity like that. You're doing something really beautiful. You're supporting, probably supporting the areas when you come sometimes when you support some of these people. Report an error in the passage at 1:03:57 Highlight the passage at 1:03:57

1:04:23 What an amazing thing that is. So this is a... Nice way of thinking. Don't try too hard to think like that, because if you try too hard, you kind of destroy it a little bit as well. Oh, I must think like this. It doesn't really work if you try too hard. It has to come naturally. It has to incline your mind gently in that direction, and then you might be able to do it. Thank you, Ajahn. Report an error in the passage at 1:04:23 Highlight the passage at 1:04:23

1:04:47 All right, let us take some of the online questions, because maybe people online are waiting for their answers. Question number one. Dear Ajahn Brahmali, does one typically become less able to enter jhāna as they grow old and the body deteriorates, becomes deceased? Also, how do animals make good karma to be reborn as human? Do you typically become less able to enter jhāna as the body grows old and the body deteriorates? Report an error in the passage at 1:04:47 Highlight the passage at 1:04:47

1:05:18 I would say the answer is yes, because the body gets in the way, and the body makes life difficult. And the worse state you are in, the harder it often gets. However, if you are a very solid meditator and you know how to achieve these jhāna states because you've been doing it for a long time, you can bypass the old age and the illness to a very large degree here. Report an error in the passage at 1:05:18 Highlight the passage at 1:05:18

1:05:47 But probably not totally here. There will be some extent to which it makes life more difficult for you. How do animals make good kamma to be reborn as humans? That is a very good question. And I don't think there is any answer. Very good question. When I say that it means I don't know what the answer is. And basically the Buddha says that there is no making of good kamma in those realms. Report an error in the passage at 1:05:47 Highlight the passage at 1:05:47

1:06:14 So once you are reborn as an animal you have a serious problem. So please don't be reborn as an animal. Can you promise not to be reborn as an animal? You can't promise, right? It's very hard to know, but I wouldn't recommend it. You may think that being reborn as an animal is really nice. You get reborn as the dog or the cat in a nice family and they will kind of pet you and look after you all the time, but don't count on it. There's a lot of unhidden dukkha in those lives. Report an error in the passage at 1:06:14 Highlight the passage at 1:06:14

1:06:45 Question number two from Germany. Dear Ajahn, please explain the difference between nature and mind. How do they relate to each other? How can mind just set the conditions for nature to grow? Is the mind nature? So, not 100 % sure what you are asking there because mind is an aspect of nature. Mind is just nature in a certain way. But maybe what you mean is nature outside, like vegetation or whatever. Report an error in the passage at 1:06:45 Highlight the passage at 1:06:45

1:07:24 But there isn't any absolute distinction between nature and mind. They're closely related to each other. How do they relate to each other? One way they relate to each other is that if you practice the spiritual path really well, nature becomes more beautiful. If you purify your own mind and then you go out into nature, nature looks more beautiful because you are out in nature. Report an error in the passage at 1:07:24 Highlight the passage at 1:07:24

1:07:52 That is one way they relate to each other. Another way that they relate to each other is that according to some of the suttas, it is possible to get reborn in a plant. You can become some kind of spirit and spirits can be reborn in plants. That means you start to look at nature a little bit different. Report an error in the passage at 1:07:52 Highlight the passage at 1:07:52

1:08:13 It means you take a bit more care. It means you don't chop down those trees so fast because maybe there's a spirit living in that tree. And if that spirit sees you chopping down the tree, it may not be happy. The spirit may say, what am I going to do with this person chopping down my abode? I'm just repeating a story from the suttas, by the way. Report an error in the passage at 1:08:13 Highlight the passage at 1:08:13

1:08:33 So actually it is in the suttas. So whether that is really happening or not is a bit uncertain. But you can see how there are all of these connections basically here. Can the mind set the conditions for nature to grow? So I guess what you're asking for here, can we make trees and plants and things grow faster or better because of our mind? Report an error in the passage at 1:08:33 Highlight the passage at 1:08:33

1:08:57 And I think the answer is actually yes. And there is more and more evidence I think these days that we affect the plants in our life. Yeah, there is the idea sometimes being done in experiments whereby you say nice things to your plant, where you do kind things, and the plant reacts in a positive way. Report an error in the passage at 1:08:57 Highlight the passage at 1:08:57

1:09:19 There's more and more of these kind of experiments coming out. So I think you can. So be kind to nature, and maybe that will kind of help nature to grow a bit better. Report an error in the passage at 1:09:19 Highlight the passage at 1:09:19

1:09:30 Question number three. Dear Ajahn, how to move forward if you're no longer happy in your job? But another new job opportunity is in real estate that is destructive to the environment and causes gentrification where we live. Wow, so hard. How to make these choices? So what you have to ask yourself is the following question. Report an error in the passage at 1:09:30 Highlight the passage at 1:09:30

1:09:55 How can you make, which job can you make the most spiritual progress in your life? That is what you should ask yourself. So choose the job where you think you can make the most spiritual progress. That is what the Buddha said is the most important thing in life and so that should be the benchmark for how we make these kind of choices. So you can become, maybe you can become a nice real estate. Report an error in the passage at 1:09:55 Highlight the passage at 1:09:55

1:10:19 Subtitled by Grethel Trejo so maybe it's just you know maybe that is the way forward if you're on the job and you're not happy in that job then that can often be very destructive to be in an unhappy job it can lead to all kinds of problems so I don't know the answer, but ask yourself what is most likely to lead to spiritual progress, and that's where you should go. Question number four. Report an error in the passage at 1:10:19 Highlight the passage at 1:10:19

1:10:55 Ajahn, is it correct to say kamma is the way we condition our consciousness? Absolutely. So kamma conditions our consciousness. If you are motivated by positive things, you're conditioning your consciousness to experience more happiness, more joy, more good feelings, basically. Question number five. Ajahn, how do we deal with serious illness on your own when you are on your own without much support from people? Report an error in the passage at 1:10:55 Highlight the passage at 1:10:55

1:11:24 Job, home and health issues coming up. Can you please give some advice? Report an error in the passage at 1:11:24 Highlight the passage at 1:11:24

1:11:31 Again, I think very often you just have to have compassion for yourself. You have to have a sense of mettā and kindness for yourself. This is one of the foundations for dealing with serious illness. For dealing with anything in life really. Because you understand that this is human nature. This is the way you have to be. Often there is no way around these kind of things. Report an error in the passage at 1:11:31 Highlight the passage at 1:11:31

1:11:54 And so you have compassion for yourself. It's also an opportunity when you have these things to learn more about other people. If you see the illness in your own life it's also easier to have compassion for others because you understand more about human nature when you see these things in your own life. Report an error in the passage at 1:11:54 Highlight the passage at 1:11:54

1:12:11 So you can grow spiritual qualities out of this if you use it wisely. It's about using it wisely. The Buddha taught us to reflect on illness all age and death. And when you are ill, that is usually a very good opportunity because then you know what it actually means. So make it into fuel for your spiritual path. Make it into cause to make your spiritual path work even better. And I think that is often the best way to use these things. Report an error in the passage at 1:12:11 Highlight the passage at 1:12:11

1:12:41 And as you do that... You will become more accepting of your illness. When you become more accepting of your illness, it becomes less of a problem. When it becomes less of a problem, it may even start to die down a little bit. So, yeah, there you are. Okay, everyone, nice to see you all tonight. I wish you all a wonderful evening and a wonderful few days ahead. Report an error in the passage at 1:12:41 Highlight the passage at 1:12:41

1:13:08 And let us finish off, as we always do, by paying homage to the Buddha Dhamma Saṅgha. Report an error in the passage at 1:13:08 Highlight the passage at 1:13:08