Latest / Zen Community of Oregon Dharma Talks / The Shape of Karma - Jogen Salzberg, Sensei

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The Shape of Karma - Jogen Salzberg, Sensei · Zen Community of Oregon Dharma Talks

• 0:00
  Jomon: Hello, and welcome. This is the Zen Community of Oregon, making the teachings of the Buddhadharma accessible to support your practice. New episodes air every week.
• 0:16
  Jogen: I take refuge in Buddha, take refuge in Dharma, take refuge in Sangha. So I am continuing to do talks based on requests for topics that I receive, and either two or three people requested that I talk about karma. And it was interesting how hard it was for me to prepare this talk, And I think it's because this is a principle in the teachings that can be easily misunderstood, and it's hard to convey, the subtlety and the nuance of it. Ideally, it would be a class series where there would be, you know, somebody sharing the Buddhist principles, but then there'd be lots of dialogue about it. But I'm gonna give it a go.
• 1:15
  In a sense, ZCO, this sangha does teach about karma all the time because we put such an emphasis on the precepts, put such an emphasis on ethical living, on paying attention to how we be, and an understanding of karma is implicit in that, if not explicit. I organize my talk, however, into three essential points on karma. The... I'll I'll share some citations of the Buddha from the Pali Canon, and the Buddha uses the words kama rather than karma. So I'll go between those.
• 1:56
  The three points. In a way, it's like, why does karma matter? Why is why is this principle even taught or spoken of? The first point could be, we can be unconscious to greater or lesser degrees about our part in our destiny and evolution. We can be unconscious of our part in our evolution.
• 2:25
  Through practice, we can creatively respond to manifesting results of our actions that is past karma ripening. And then the third point is karmic tendencies that are fabricated through repeated action. They can be liberated in the still point, or they are liberated in the still point, and that's that's what Zazen is in a sense. So we can be unconscious of our part in our destiny or our evolution. Thich Nhat Hanh, this is his translation of a sutra, I don't know the origin of it.
• 3:06
  This gatha, this... A gatha is an excerpt from a sutra says, my actions are my only true belongings. My actions are my only true belongings. I cannot escape the consequences of my actions. My actions are the ground upon which I stand.
• 3:27
  And what he's saying there, maybe that's what people mean when they speak in terms of the law of karma. My actions are my only true belongings. I cannot escape the consequences of my actions. And my actions are the ground on which I stand. Here's the Buddha speaking about kama.
• 3:54
  This is from the Majima Nikaya, which is a body of, scriptures. I did not write down the title of this particular sutta. Monks, these are the three causes for origination of comma. What three? Greed is a cause for the origination of comma.
• 4:15
  Hatred is a cause for the origination of comma. Delusion is a cause for the origination of comma. Any kamu monks fashioned through greed, born of greed, caused by greed, originated by greed, ripens wherever the individual is reborn. Wherever that comma ripens, it is there that one experiences its result, either in this very life or in the next rebirth or on some subsequent occasion. He goes on through hatred and delusion, he says, any comma fashioned through delusion, born of delusion, caused by delusion, Originated by delusion ripens wherever the individual is reborn.
• 4:56
  Wherever that comma ripens, it is there that one experiences its result, either in this very life or in the next rebirth or on some subsequent occasion. Suppose monks, seeds that are intact, unspoiled, not damaged by wind and the sun's heat, well preserved, were deposited in well prepared ground in a good field and receive proper rainfall. So that is the conditions come together for them to sprout. Right? In this way, those seeds would grow, increase, and mature.
• 5:30
  So too, any karma that is fashioned through greed, hatred, delusion, born of delusion, caused by delusion, originated by delusion ripens wherever the individual is reborn. Wherever that comma ripens, it is there that one experiences its result, either in this very life or in the next rebirth or on some subsequent occasion. Have you or I ever gotten away with anything? I wanna invite you just to reflect on that. Have you ever gotten away with anything?
• 6:07
  What does that mean to to get away with something? Does it mean that, so and so didn't notice? Does that mean you got away with it? Or if you think of... Think in terms of actions that you've taken that they have enough repetition that they're a way of being that you once had or can can slide into, positive or negative?
• 6:36
  A habitual a habitual motion, a habitual way that you be. Was there ever any of those that did not have a consequence that you were later responsible for? Right? When I was, a teenager, I skateboardered and totally ignored my knees. Okay?
• 7:00
  I didn't escape the result of that action. Or I sometimes joke, with people who have wholesome upbringings that I was raised by MTV, which is a fact. So I struggle with the karma of having being raised by MTV. But think, are there any actions that you have taken with enough repetition that they were a style of how you showed up that you just got away with? That somehow like, you know, vanished at some point just poof.
• 7:35
  You'd also think of it positively like a time that you were consistently engaged in something wholesome or life affirming. Was there not a consequence of that later? Some people worked really hard when they were young in their studies. There's a consequence of that now. Or they worked really hard developing a skill on an instrument or they worked really hard on how to show up and be a good friend.
• 8:08
  Did any of that ever just sort of poof vanish in your experience? So this is one of the things karma is pointing at. That we know that we don't quote unquote get away with anything, but sometimes we believe we will. Or there are some pockets or some moments where we believe this doing of my mind, my body, my mouth is somehow not going to bear fruit in the future. We lose that, we lose that vision.
• 8:48
  One of the ways that, in a simple way, Buddha would describe kama in terms of interdependent origination, is a technical term, as Buddha would say, because of this, that. Because of that, this. So even just to raise up the principle of karma is just helping us remember, oh, I can make conscious, unconscious connections between what I do and what happens related to that doing. And in in particular, I think the mind is the place that we don't have without some training generally, a really deep belief that what we do in our mind bears fruit in the future. What we think bears fruit, what we attend to bears fruit, what we fantasize about bears fruit.
• 9:51
  We're shaped by those things. Could say that mind is making karma all the time in the absence of practice. It's making karma obvious mind doings and subtle mind doings. Right? And we come into a spiritual practice that says, stop and look, and we encounter all these habits and some of them are ferocious.
• 10:21
  They're really thick. They seem to have all this momentum behind them and we go, wait, this is really hard to work with. And we weren't conscious that for how long we were feeding and seeding and shoring that up. We were putting energy into its momentum. Karma has this quality of self replicating.
• 10:48
  So if I create a tendency unconsciously, that tendency doesn't necessarily have any entropy in it because the mind tends to just keep feeding it. Think about, different kinds of self defeating ways of thinking. They just keep going if they're not interrupted by some kind of of awareness. Thinking it once leads to thinking it again, thinking it a thousand times leads to thinking it 10,000 times and the more it gets thought, the more a groove is is created. So one thing that this teaching is saying is just be careful.
• 11:28
  Don't be so careful that we get so uptight we live in a kind of China shop kind of awareness. But don't get too loose that we start believing there aren't gonna be consequences of what goes on in our mind. Let me, try to talk about this in an... From another... With another example.
• 11:56
  Somebody, in one of the talk requests asked, well, what does it mean when you say it's my karma? I've heard different teachers say, oh, such and such is my karma and I was thinking about that. It's really interesting question. To say it's my karma and have that come from your experience, I think it means you begin intuiting resonances, connections between what arrives in your life and what you have born with your mind, speech and body. And other people might not be able to see those resonances, those connections to what's arriving for you, but you, whether you want to know that there are resonances, you know because you're in this you're in this deep field of attention that the resonances belong to you.
• 12:51
  Consider the idea that you have an internal karmic field that continually interacts with the external world. Right? So here here, let me try to give an example of that. Okay. So let's say you're somebody that past thoughts of pride, let's say it began with you're an only child and your mother read a book that said you should praise your child as much as possible.
• 13:20
  So you got praised from you know, zero to 12 day in and day out and you thought, I'm hot stuff actually. Mom says I'm hot stuff and dad thinks I'm hot stuff and I must be hot stuff. And then you have thoughts in response to those thoughts. So past thoughts of pride, they kind of aggregate into an abiding belief. It becomes like a a soft structure in your body, heart and mind.
• 13:46
  And that soft structure is something like, I'm better than most people. I'm kind of a little bit different than others. Okay? Then this abiding belief because as I said, things self replicate. What we think if we don't know what we're thinking, we tend to keep thinking the same kinds of things when those grooves get laid down.
• 14:08
  This abiding belief, if it's acting outside of awareness, it starts to shape your perception. It starts to shape how you interact and how you see other people. So in the case of people, this abiding belief that I'm better than people, I'm better than x people, it means I don't form relationships with x people. It's harder for me. I I I lean less into relationality because that means I have to kind of be on the same level as people, but I hold myself apart because I have that abiding belief.
• 14:39
  That karmic field is active in me. I don't form relationships with those people and then that belief, it actually gets stronger if not just doesn't get diminished because the way to defeat the belief that I'm better than other people is to hang out with other people and be seen by other people. You following me? But that belief actually affects how I show up. Right?
• 15:01
  It's shaping my reality. And then I feel lonely because of my pride belief karma, but because it's operating outside awareness, I think the reason I'm lonely is I'm special and different, other people don't get me. And then the whole thing continues to spin internally shaping one's external reality. No one gets me. These people don't get me.
• 15:27
  And don't think I'm doing the blame parents thing. From the Buddhist point of view, you know, you were probably doing this for 20 lives. Don't blame mom. That's... I'm done with mom blaming.
• 15:45
  So all of this is dependent on particular I am thoughts that self replicate and self confirm because awareness wisdom is not operating. No one either reflected it to us or if we did reflect it to it to us, we said, you don't know me. We never stopped and really looked at the mind through through the wisdom of something like the Buddha's teachings. Right? So what what kind of internal karmic, ambiance do do we have operating that that inner interacts with externals?
• 16:25
  So, generally, if we're not really paying attention, if we don't do inner work, there is one. That's the first point that I want to make. Second, through practice, we can creatively respond to the results of our actions. A lot of the kindness of a tradition like Buddhism is simply... It's sort of like, hey, life doesn't have to just happen to you.
• 17:00
  Or more specifically, your mind, your heart and your attitude doesn't have to just happen to you. True. Innumerable factors of life are outside our control. So many things are outside our control, but is our heart, is our mind, is our attitude outside of our control? That's...
• 17:26
  To to investigate this is the is the invitation of dharma. You might know this quote by Victor Frankl, everything can be taken from a man but one thing, the last of the human freedoms, to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way. Of course, was somebody who was practicing this in a concentration camp. So appreciating karma in a in a sense is a creative empowerment. It's saying there are all these forces that are external to me that could be debated.
• 18:08
  Let's say they are external to me. In the midst of them, I am empowered to shape myself. I'm empowered to not be unconsciously shaped by those influences. I I can tune I can tune my mind. I can tune my mind and my heart through this practice, and I can also tune it so that when the results of past actions ripen, I'm not just bowled over by it.
• 18:36
  I wanna share a sutra, this is a sutta. This one's called the salt crystal sutta, and I don't know the Pali name for it, but Google could probably find it for you. Here's what the Buddha said a long time ago. There is the case where a trifling evil deed done by a certain individual takes her to hell. There is the case where the very same sort of trifling deed by another individual is experienced in the here and now, and for the most part, barely appears for a moment.
• 19:07
  Now, just let me back up. Now, for people think about what the Buddha means in this in different ways when when something like hell is talked about in Buddhism, there are no eternal existing places. Even if you're there for a long time, it's not some eternally existing place. It's really about how one's state of mind and environment interact. Right?
• 19:32
  So an evil deed being taken to hell can be like, you know, you're enraged alone in your house because you said something that you shouldn't have said. That could be a way of understanding what the Buddha is saying here. So again, now, a trifling evil deed done by what sort of individual takes her to hell? There is the case where a certain individual is undeveloped in contemplating the body, undeveloped in virtue, undeveloped in heart, undeveloped in discernment, tight small hearted dwelling with suffering. A trifling evil deed done by this sort of individual takes them to hell.
• 20:13
  There's no resilience that has been developed. There's no faith. There's no spaciousness. There's no ability to watch the mind arise, watch it dissipate. There's no spiritual training.
• 20:26
  Right? There there's no choice but to be in reactivity. There's no choice but to believe the thought. As a way to translate what Buddha is saying. Now a trifling evil deed done by what sort of individual is experiencing the here and now, and for the most part, barely appears for a moment?
• 20:45
  That is, let's say the anger flashes and there's the pain of that, but it just passes right through. Okay? It doesn't become a hell. It doesn't become, a place of entrapment. In this case, this certain individual is developed in contemplating the body, and developed in virtue, developed in heart, developed in discernment, they're unrestricted, magnanimous, dwelling with the immeasurable.
• 21:10
  A trifling evil deed done by this sort of individual is experienced in the here and now, now, and for the most part barely appears for a moment. Suppose that a man were to drop a salt crystal into a small amount of water in a cup. What do you think? Would the water in the cup become salty because of the salt crystal and unfit to drink? Right?
• 21:32
  Oh, if you put, you know, let's say you put, a big chunk of salt in here, and so he's asking, would this not become salty? His students say, yes, Lord. Why is that? There being only a small amount of water in the cup, it would become salty because of the salt crystal, unfit to drink. Buddha says, now suppose that a person were to drop a salt crystal into the River Ganges, what do you think?
• 21:54
  Would the water in the River Ganges become salty because of the salt crystal and unfit to drink? No, Lord. Why is that? There being a great mass of water in the River Ganges, it would not become salty because of the salt crystal or unfit to drink. So we're working with the reality that, habits that we have had some part, conscious or not, in putting energy into, they arise.
• 22:24
  We deal with them. We have what's called our kind of karmic bundle arising. One of the other questions I received was what to do about the karmic bundle that I have arising. It was basically, and actually, the whole tradition is an answer to that. The whole tradition is an answer to that.
• 22:46
  But the Buddha is talking about really the essence of it, the the the bearing fruit of past actions cannot be avoided from Buddhist point of view. It's going to happen, but it can arise in a big, big heart. It can arise in a spacious mind. It can arise with deep insight and its arising is therefore different. Here's an interesting, another, excerpt from, Buddha, Different Sutta.
• 23:16
  Now, what monks is old karma? The eye is to be seen as old karma, capable of being experienced. The ear, the nose, the tongue, the body, the mind is capable of being experienced. This is called called old karma. So in other words, the very fact that we are alive here, this is the result of past actions.
• 23:41
  This is real past actions at least of our family, our ancestors, it's a result of, I mean, countless actions, right? This body and its current state is a result of past actions. Some of you, did you... What was that book called where the guy did the fast food experiment where he ate McDonald's for... Supersize Me.
• 24:01
  Supersize Me is a karmic manual. The body that arose from supersize me was old karma. It was old karma. It was past tendencies bearing fruit. But then the Buddha continues, and what is new karma?
• 24:22
  Whatever karma one does now with the body, speech, or with the intellect, mind. This is called new karma. In a way, we can't do anything about the past. What we can do is respond differently to what arises now and create new, habits that we're gonna seed into the future. We could say that right now, this heart, mind, body, our whole life is the culmination of all our responses to life.
• 25:01
  We've been responding to life. And sometimes we're responding really scared. Sometimes we're responding really supported. And sometimes sometimes we're not even really responding. We're just sort of like pinballs being buffeted around.
• 25:21
  So past actions manifest as this life, and sometimes it's... We have a hard bundle of karma to deal with. Right? That was was clear. That was true for me.
• 25:36
  I mean, I don't wanna focus too much on the bodily aspect, but I ate so poorly growing up. I just loved chicken fingers. And near my high school, there was this place that we could leave for lunch and go get this basket of chicken fingers. And I didn't have the good karma to think about health. So for my four years of high school, I ate those chicken fingers almost every day, and then I came to meditate, and my body was kind of all messed up.
• 26:01
  Right? I had to work with that karma. I had to have equanimity with that karma. I had to accept that karma. I made that choice.
• 26:11
  So what do we do if we... When we have a tough bundle of karma manifesting? A bodhisattva state of mind is, what can I learn from this? What can I learn from this? If I go through this with some measure of grace, if I go through this and try to learn from it and try to find that big heart, what can I learn and what can I offer?
• 26:38
  And I often think of people in recovery. Some of the wisest people I know are people who've gone through the recovery process. A person's hitting rock bottom and standing up leads to the wisdom to help other people do that. You can't really do that if you've not hit rock bottom and stood up. Or if we have, you know, the other side of this is also something to, watch out for.
• 27:07
  If we have positive, beneficent karma that we like, pleasurable karma arising at our time in our life, how can I not get caught up, lazy and intoxicated by that success? How can I take the good conditions I have and keep creating positive responses? I remember, Chosen talking about this point and it really was, very interesting to me. She said that one of the things that happens is people, experience the result of past actions and they have a really good time in life or a whole life and they don't see virtue. This is what's meant by the heavenly realms in, in the Buddhist teachings.
• 27:48
  And if you read some of the old Chinese Zen poems, they say you should, you know, escape the heavenly realms as soon as possible, and, you know, coming from a Judeo Christian standpoint, that sounds really weird. Why would you wanna escape the heavenly realms? And what they mean by that is it's so easy to not understand that what's happening now is, the evaporating results of past actions, And if I don't see the causes of future beneficence for other people, for myself, it will not be seeded. It didn't just come out of nowhere. It doesn't just happen.
• 28:23
  You could think of that ancestrally, like a lot of us have a good life because someone in our family worked really hard to provide material conditions that we could have a good life. That's gonna be over. That's gonna run out. When that's gone, is it being seeded for the future? So these kind of things apply to so called positive and negative karma.
• 28:53
  Oh, there's so much to say and I wanna talk about this with you. I realize I sometimes lie. I say I'm gonna do a part two on a talk and then I go, nah. I'm not really gonna do a part two. I think I should do a part two of this one.
• 29:09
  I really should. So I'm not gonna lie this time because I have more that I, want to say. So... But it's important that we have time to discuss this.
• 29:23
  Jomon: Thank you for listening to the Zen Community of Oregon podcast, and thank you for your practice. New episodes air every week. Please consider making a donation at zendust.org. Your support supports us.