The law of cause and effect (Karma)

Buddhists believe in the law of cause and effect or karma: all the suffering we experience is the result of its previous cause; if there is no cause, there is no effect. If we engage in a good cause, we will experience a good effect, and vice versa. If we plant an apple, it will grow apple, not orange. If we plant an orange, it will grow orange, not apple. And all the mental, physical and financial ailments are the effects of our accumulated causes. Nothing is independent of cause and condition, and so things depend on cause and condition. So there are no effects which doesn't precede its cause.

The suffering we experience is the result of a cause that we accumulated. If we have not created a cause of suffering, Karma we did not commit will not be experienced, and the karma we commit will not be wasted. There is no fruit without seed.

Every part of our life is related to karma. Although we deny law of cause and effect, it is a reality that we experience every moment of our life.  The poor man suffer from financial problems, until he unearth a treasure lying under his floor.

For our own happiness, we create the cause of suffering. In Guide to the Bodhisattva's Way of Life Shantideva says:

          Even though we wish to abandon suffering

          We create the cause of this suffering.

          Although we wish for happiness,

          Like enemies, we unwittingly destroy our happiness.

Karma is produced by ignorance. This very ignorance has wide and deeper meaning in Buddhist context. To begin with, we should know the way we generate ignorance, and how it accumulate karma. To know the way we generate ignorance, we should identify ignorance, and should know the stages of generating ignorance, the cause of ignorance and its negative effects.

There are six root ignorance. These are: attachment, anger, pride, ignorance, deluded doubt and deluded view. All these ignorance including the six roots derives from self-grasping ( I), and so the root of ignorance is self-grasping. Saying I, we first cherish to ourselves. Then, saying mine, we attach to our body, eye, face and so on. This leads to attachment to our side and hatred to other side. To protect I and Mine, we engage in harming, stealing, lying, and so on. In this way we accumulate karma. Therefore I or self-grasping plays the main role to accumulate sin and karma. This self-grasping is annihilated only by realizing emptiness.  So the emptiness is the antidote to self-grasping. Therefore Lord Buddha gave numerous teachings mostly in order to remove the self-grasping. We then attain liberation or Moksha. Any form of suffering comes to end.  

Even in one day, without our notice, we accumulate many sins by our speech, body and mind. We do not remember how many sins we commit every day. If we maintain mindfulness, we will be careful with our thought, action and speech.

If it is not karma, then why the children from the same family differ in intelligence, behavior, thoughts and so on?  We seldom find a family whose members have everything in common.

Some people escape death in air crush or road accidents, while others die immediately. Those who escape have no karma to die on that instance. If there is no karma of death, one would not die although he jumps from a building. Sometimes we think I haven't done any bad things, still I have problems after problems. Remember we experience the fruits of karma we accumulated in our previous life.

Few days back Stave Jobs passed away. His demise was a big lost to humankind in the digital world. He was a talented person and made a lasting contribution to young generation. Many wished him live longer because he gives us sophisticated gadget. But I am not yet reach his gadget. When karma came, it is impossible although we want to live. Here I mentioned his name to appreciate his immense digital contribution that no one ever dreamed. I pray that he reborn as a human and continue his social contribution to humankind.

 

Death cannot be avoided by fame, wealth, skill and entourage. If we have belief in karma, we try our best to avoid negatives as much as possible, and engage in positive as much as possible. Even when we die, we will die peacefully.

 If we have no karma, no matter how hard we work, we are not able to accomplish. If it is not so, everybody becomes rich because everybody wants to be rich and work for that end.

According to Buddhism there are four forces to clean our sins. Among them the most important are to regret the sin and promise not to repeat it. We wash our body every day, but forget to clean the dirt inside our body, which is sin. If you have interest to learn about karma, you can read Lamarim, which is condensation of Buddhism, where you find the subject on karma.

Prices are soaring; this makes us think more. Many gadgets are creating; these catch our attention. Generally speaking, what we have in the world is enough. What we really need is: we need to promote human value, remove poverty and preserve environment. Companies manufacture various technologies and commodities. They stir curiosity in our mind, and they eventually win us. They know the function and emotion of our mind. So every month they make mobiles with different designs. It is fine for rich, but problem for the poor. In this world has more poor than rich. These things often corrupt human mind. Some say it is my hobby to buy a latest mobile, and they buy it the moment it is unveiled.

I think it is better if we preserve environment and water. To wash their face our senior monks used a bowl filled with water. They said we should not waste water, and or it comes time when water is scarcity. I think they are the most qualified to receive the award for water preservation. Given the importance of environment, they planted fruits and flowers in their courtyard. My Guru wears same cloths for over 20 years. However, they used the cloths or things unless it is totally useless. My master has a bed sheet. It looks new, but it passed 20 years. On New Year he takes it out from wooden box and spread on the bed. When the New Year ends, he washes and packs inside the box.

Although we have so many facilities – I am sorry I have less facility and zero balance – we still say I have this and that problem. Our human desire is so large that it is difficult to be satisfied. If you read life stories of senior monks, our problems would disappear like melted ice. You would say: How they survived? How could they lead happy and peaceful life?

Also, if you have a house, look at millions of people who have no houses. You have your own house, and you are better than them. If you are in developed countries, you enjoy much facility than millions of people living in developing countries. So you have many things which you should be happy and satisfied.

However, look at this life what we were in previous life. What we will be in next life, look at what we do now.

Dharmarakshita said:

“The oppression we go through is caused by looking down on low profiled people, or it is the result of holding an attitude of contempt instead of love for others, hatred instead of showing them loving-kindness. The sufferings of poverty are the result of deliberately preventing others from gaining their necessities or destroying their possessions. The sufferings of estrange from ones friends and family are the result of ones actions like seducing other's partner, or deliberately estrange other’s friends. However, most of our experiences in this life are compensation of the actions we committed in our past lives”.

A man called Nyempa was ugly, but he had melodious voice. People are disgust with his look, but pleasant with his voice. In the previous life, Nyempa was a builder. A king hired many men to build a large Stupa. One of the builders was wore out and felt hostile towards the king's project. He muttered to himself "What is the point of constructing such a huge Stupa?" When the construction of the Stupa was finished, he offered a beautiful bell for the Stupa. The builder's hostility caused his body into ugly. His offering of the bell gave him divine voice. So we unwittingly create all the wrong causes.

  
We must firmly hold this determination in our mind. With that, we will try our best to create virtuous and stay away from non-virtuous as much as possible. We cannot abandon all non-virtue actions, but we can abandon killing, stealing, lying, and harming.

For Buddhists observation of karma is the main practice. Karma is very powerful. Even a Bodhisattva takes rebirth in lower realm. However, all misfortune and failure are caused by our karma. We don’t know whether we have karma or not. We should try what we like. If we fail we can try another one. There is nothing to worry. This is how we lead our life.

Only Buddha perceives the details process of karma. Not so by Bodhisattva. Belief in karma is difficult task: we rarely experience Karma immediately. If we experience karma immediately, we would avoid non-virtue and engage in virtue. Secondly, that we don't cautious or avoid non-virtue is influenced by having no belief in karma.

The law of karma is applied to every human being. The recognition of the fact of karma provides us benefit and profit. Regardless of our belief or recognition, karma is fact and reality, but invisible. Buddha didn't say I will protect you. Instead Buddha said I will give you teaching; you follow them; and you will be liberated. And if we believe in karma, tolerance becomes part of our daily life.

Karma follows us like shadow.

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Avoid unpleasant words; it slices feelings.

This is the world where lives inhabitants who differ in the form of color, skin, religion, tradition, personality, etc. It is like an ocean in which exist various fishes and animals. So we all have different looks, different view, different interest, different culture, and goes on and on.

We often use unpleasant words when we feel unsatisfied, or angry or in bad mood. And it is often as a result that the mindfulness is not maintained properly.

Unpleasant words include blame and criticism. We blame other because we don’t accept our fault. We criticize when we don’t like.

We feel relieve when we use unpleasant words. But how do we feel when other use unpleasant words against us? Of course we get angry. So they feel the same like us.  

By judging external appearance, we differentiate beauty and ugly. We then use unpleasant words including racism. The unpleasant words we use is to annoy others.

When we talk about beauty, we talk about our skin. Our skeletons are covered by the skin, and we call our skin as beauty or ugly. Also, external beauty is merely composition of skin and cosmetics. This beauty is uncertain as our volatile bodies subject to fat, skinny, ugly, old, etc.

Nevertheless, the real beauty lies inside us, which is kind and gentle. What we see normally is external beauty, not the internal beauty. Internal beauty is real beauty. So we can create this beauty inside our mind.

The unpleasant words bring out undesirable effect which we will experience one day. The king Selgyal had a daughter called Dorje. She had repulsive looking; jagged skin like tiger's skin, and hair very rough. The king, unpleasant, confined her daughter in an inaccessible room. Later, the king arranged marriage of her daughter to a poor officer; he gave them provisions that lasted for their whole life. The King told him not to expose her to anyone. Once, there was a party in which every officers and their families took part. When he was alone, some wondered why he did not bring his wife. When the man was drunk, a fellow stole his key, and send some assistant to check on his wife.

At that time, wife Dorje thought, "What kind of sin I committed? I had to live in a dark place and never seen the sun and the moon. If Buddha really protect and help those tormented by suffering, I offer prostration to him." She then deeply wished the Buddha show his face to her. The Lord Buddha came to know her wish and appeared in her room. Buddha first showed his hair. She was so elated that it purified her thoughts, and her hair turned into smooth and colorful. By seeing Buddha's face and body she transformed into a gorgeous woman. She looked like a daughter of god.

The assistants were stunned to see the gorgeous wife. They decided that her beauty was the reason to keep her in solitary.

She told her husband about the Buddha. After sometime, the king heard the story. All of them including the King developed great faith to Buddha, to whom they asked the reason of why Dorje turned into a gorgeous woman. Buddha said: There was a rich man in Varanasi. He did offering to a very ugly monk, the frequent visitor to his home. The rich man had a daughter, and she said the monk was very ugly whenever he comes. The daughter was the wife Dorje. Buddha added that it is the result of the fault of speech.

So it is really perilous to say unpleasant words to our fellow human. As a result of unpleasant words, we can’t avoid to accumulate un-virtuous that has to be faced someday. If you don’t believe in Karma—the law of cause and effect, then it is different matter.

The little Desire

The little Desire

According to Buddhism, the world we live in is called the desire realm, because the human beings have high desire on the ground that their desire multiple. Many saints left the worldly affairs and sought spiritualism. They know that desire in the world is unlimited, and that the desire goes hand in hand with suffering. In other words, human desire is limitless.

We are not satisfied with those we have and those we got. Still we want more.

Our desire is so high that we almost need everything that appeal to us, except it is impossible. When we see a beautiful car, we wish to have it; when we see an impressive house, we wish to have it too.

The moment we achieve our goal, we enjoy satisfaction. But this gradually disappears. We then draw to new desire and engage to fulfill it. To meet our desire, we might take illegitimate and negative ways, which even plunge us into bar. More we fulfill our desire, more the desire accrue. In common parlance, it seems to be intrinsic part of our life to fulfill goals after goals, almost throughout our life.

Since we got up in the morning till the bed, we talk and work merely to satisfy our desire. It is not exaggeration if I say that we devote our entire life to fulfilling our desire. Though, we are not yet satisfied. It is therefore clear that our desire has no end, and that more desire causes more suffering. So why don’t we develop little desire?

So far we sweat blood to fulfill my desire. The satisfaction derived from the fulfillment disappears quickly. We then grow new desire, and later face the same fate. If we are unable to fulfill desire, we feel the flame of anguish. However, at the end, we come across dissatisfaction and suffering. So it is better to develop little desire.

By considering the function and effect of our desire, we come to know its effect, which would teach us how to deal with it. Let's focus on it.

It is true that we cannot abandon desire. It is also true we can control or reduce its extend and intense. Just as a vehicle needs break for halting, so as our desire.

Satisfaction

The satisfaction is a fundamental requirement for human beings. For satisfaction we are awake and busy. Despite the hard work, we are not able to satisfy. Nor we satisfy with who we are and what we have.

Also, we need everything being best, or at least good.

We hardly think we are fine with who we are, what we have, and what we do. We have high desire. In addition, we are taught to be ambitious, think big, be hungry and so on. As a result, to relish genuine satisfaction is far away. With genuine satisfaction we feel fit to who we are, what we do and what we got; we are fine if we don’t have things that we want and others have.

For some it is enough to live in a small room, and have sufficient cloths and food. For some everything should be luxury, plus branded. Buddha said everything depend on ones mind. So if our mind thinks ok, then it is ok, and if our mind think it is not fine, then it is not fine.

If we do not press to satisfy ourselves, there is no way to be happy no matter who we are, what we do, and what we got.

Now we know it is important to develop satisfaction for real happiness. Let's the word in italics be reverberated in our heart:

"I am fine who I am and what I have. It is also fine if I don't have things that I want and others have."

If you really think it is true and you want to practice, you are half way. And there is no expense to be happy. It is just to modify our way of thinking.

On the whole, we ourselves cultivate both happiness and suffering. By developing satisfaction, we will enjoy happy life, whereas un-satisfaction plunge us into miserable.

Speaking of little desire and satisfaction, we don’t have to throw away our possessions, nor have to stop to move forward. We should work for living; we should have desire; and we should seek the desire. But we should know how to satisfy.

Your mind is the source of both happiness and suffering.

Lord Buddha said: You yourself are protector, and you yourself are enemy. It means that whether we want to be good or bad is in our hand.

The great master Chandrakirti said that the mind generates everything. Since our mind generates both happiness and suffering, it is the source of happiness and suffering. But we generate sufferings more, for we are getting used to attachment, desire, anger, greedy.

Given the fact that our mind is the source of happiness and suffering, we are ignorant of it, and we seek happiness with help of materialism. Of course we imagine, plan and act in order to get rid of suffering and enjoy happiness. Nevertheless, we often land in suffering.

We want happiness and we do not want suffering. To this end we should, to begin with, understand that such feelings stem from our own mind. After knowing the mind as source of happiness and suffering, we have to engage in the mind training. Generally we are not interested to provide training to our mind, but are excited to give training to our pets. We might say we don’t need the mind training because we are healthy. Truth to be told, we look fine, but we are not fine indeed.

The mind training is to tame and control our unruly mind. And many masters compare our mind to the wild elephant.

There was a king who ruled his subjects with affectionate love and compassion. The subjects abide by the king’s order like a garland of golden flower. A man called Kundudrol caught a large elephant in a forest. He took the elephant to the palace, and shouted, “Please take a look at the elephant which is worthy for the great king’s ride.” The king and his retinues came out and looked at the elephant. The king was pleased to see the elephant, and he ordered Kundudrol to train the elephant and offer it to him.

He trained the elephant—so much so that it became calm, lovely and powerful. Kundudrol offered the elephant to the king with a hook, saying that the elephant was properly trained. Delighted, the king rode on the elephant, accompanied by Kundudrol. They passed through villages, and eventually arrived at a forest. Smelled of a female elephant, he ran faster. The kind was terrified and scolded to Kundudrol: “You said the elephant was well trained. What happened now?” With folded hands Kundudrol said that he was skilful in training the body of elephant, and that to train the mind, only Lamas are skilful. In this story we learn that it doesn't work unless mind is tamed.

Even the wild animal like a tiger, its body can be trained, not her mind. If people have not controlled their minds, we can't take granted that they would not harm us. Nor can we trust ourselves: we do things we pledge not do, and we don't do things which we pledge to do.

There is another example. Mind is boss and we are his servants, and we serve what our mind thinks and want. Without freedom, we simply carry out the order given by our mind.

Today we praise someone, but criticize him next day. We like something now and dislike it later. Although we think give up something, we, simultaneously, keep doing it. It is because of that our mind controls us. Mind is boss whose servants are us. Therefore, we must turn our boss into servant, let him serve what we think and want; and then we will enjoy genuine happiness and satisfaction, regardless of external conditions.

Concerned merely about our body – and to display beauty - , we apply varied cosmetics, nutritious food, expensive exercises, or sometimes plastic surgery and so on. For which we spend plenty of money and time. Yet we subject to illness, unhappy, stress, etc. Despite that our bodies are clean and healthy, we lie about dirt inside like a glass which is clean outside, but unclean inside. So it is important to train our mind, for our mind is producer of happiness and suffering. And to train our mind is to be mindfulness regarding negative thoughts and actions.

The mind mostly follows the external conditions and atmosphere. During my childhood we said he is like summer weather when he is moody. In summer, rain falls; it stops suddenly; sunshine; and verse versa. Similarly, our mood subjects to change frequently. And we have cheerful mood and have nice conversation, whereas we look bloomy and complain in the afternoon. Maybe our mind is like summer weather.

Above all, we have to turn our mind into a reliable and stable, for which we ought to control or tame our mind, that is, to restrain any negative thought when it is about to arise.

Atisha said: "When we are among others, we should examine our speech; when we are alone, we must examine our mind." If we contemplate on this word and apply it daily, it is helpful to control our mind.

Let's identify our secondary mind which gives us pain, for example anger. It gives us pain. To stop anger we should apply patience which is an antidote of anger. Think about disadvantage of anger, such as, how it makes us unhappy, and how it destroys harmony. Think, feel and act! In time it will be a part of your daily life. It needs practices, and it will come naturally.

Then, identify another negative thought, apply its antidote, and practice it to become familiar. In this way we are controlling our wild mind.

For mind training, moreover, we require compassion and love. To develop them, we ought to acquaint with them. When we see a poor, we develop compassion, wishing him to free from suffering. Compassion induces love, wishing the poor to enjoy happiness. The compassion and love are the best method for controlling and training our mind.