Majjhima Nikaya Class

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SF-03192
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Middle-length Discourses

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hey
hey you forgot to tag
you mean everybody
yeah
started last time
philip
who rather similar listening
he were starting from the
susan and more than thirty six markham of bonga speaker
great karma exposition sutra
for pleasure
the verge of turning refuse

we are
just like the ceremony was the sutra
the scooter has a little credit little story in the beginning which explains why is the computer
ah disability
teach trouble
karma
it usually has to do with someone just understand this
i'm just as it moves similarly the snakes who trust someone could hurt the group teach you know a good
but all good intentions and misunderstood teaching
the when the good to heard about it he served her well
that is right in recent history and as to save story years
there were two or
religious wonders so maybe put a paw patrol trooper
the
they were having an exchange about kirby
they disagreed with one another
as a one of them somebody went to ananda basically what the solidity prototype or whatever we put a was saying that are
actions of the body of speech do not have
correct results all the actions of the mind of current results
and that he was so he said there is a a state of mind
which
or is beyond feeling beyond karmic retribution
hunger
that's what fatale put the thought and incivility the no it's not true that actions of body and speech have no correct results
although the other part is true that there is a state of mind where there is no
karmic retribution there's no feeling
so this is what other words to the the main point of their remarks is
whether or not there's a loophole in the law of clamp is there some like little place there are big place where our actions don't necessarily have consequences
and both of them in different ways think so
and they got to he goes to a nanda and the explains this exchange to announce that analysis this doesn't sound right we'd better go to tell us a good kind of good and versus we should have them come over here because it doesn't sound right to either
both of them are so let's have them come over here and then they show up and
a third venerable is around and the venerable
says
perhaps the venerable samiti spoke thus referring to the principle that whatever it is felt his suffering
and the buddha said you're all wrong you know these two are wrong and so is a would i am who
concerns that whatever is felt suffering

so
this
news are very important ah one understands these things is really important it is wandering seekers
as i've made a remark last time that you know mostly we need to think about what reality as fuck
let alone fight of it
but for these people who devoted their whole lives through an exploration of how reality really works and how one's conduct should be organized based on reality works it was very consequential you know how i saw these things and our thought about these things that really matter
or
and so when people spoke of reality in a way that was not in accord with
the truth
it was it mattered in the buddha came to good his attention he was concerned to discuss it with
so he says well i can see that i have better
speak about karma and the rest of the sutra from page
ten sixty
a number eg
begins the buddhist great discourse on actions or karma
now although
a lot of people are attracted to visit buddhism because of meditation and higher states of mind and peace and calm of meditation
in reality buddhism is fundamentally an ethical
tradition and the sense that the deep insights augmentation and the nature of reality
are important because they have implications for conduct
so in buddhism morality doesn't come from
ah some sort of sense of absolute good or bad
but rather that comes from a sense of
this is how reality is this is what it is to act in accord with reality this is what it is to act not in accord with with reality the results of acting not in accord with reality are suffering suffering is what people don't want to to
reduce and even eliminate
that kind of suffering we need it have conduct based on reality we need to understand reality and act on the basis of so
surely you know good dharma is a a teaching about action about morality and one of the points that the buddha makes over and over again and will make here in this sutra is
that's when there's action there is a consequence
if the action is positive the consequences to possible the action is negative consequences your negative
and this is really the truth and it is in fallible and envelop
now
person to understand this very deeply and who is dedicated to acting in accord with it can be free within this law of karma
not outside because there's nothing outside but inside of it
can be free and easy within it
but it's a very difficult thing to understand and these people in the beginning of the sutra are misunderstanding and now the buddha has been to sets off this is very
the point that is making here is actually
very very simple but it's a quite a number of pages and it's a little bit laboured as he lays all this stuff out but we'll see as we go along i'm gonna go through it without being too tedious about it
and then we can discuss stuff
so the buddha's now begins okay not listen closely to what i'm going to say because i'm now going to tell you some the basic facts about format
and another says yes sir
good let's listen we're ready
so the buddha says and under there are four kinds of persons
doesn't mean for kinds of persons that means basically there's four possibilities it's a logical possibilities
in relation to action and results are four ways it could go
and he just uses this expression as for kinds of people
what are the for
okay number one here's a person who kills living beings takes was not given
this conducts himself and sensual pleasures sexual matters speaks falsehood speaks maliciously speaks farsi gossips is covers has a well and holds her own views in other words this is a list of the code of conduct of
bodhidharma and this is a person does the opposite of moral conduct these are the precepts
here's a person who whose life
is the opposite of all the precepts and this person
when he dies
it's gonna be reborn in a in a miserable state
maybe even in help some hello
so now this is assuming and we can get into this letter necessary but
basically the assumption is that
our life is not limited
ah the little slow teensy little span between birth and death at the implications of our lives are far greater than that
and that time
you know we are born with already tendencies and when we pass away his tendencies pass on continue in the inner world with consequences and they use the image of rebirth past lives future lies and online so you have to that's to accept that as a given
for now you can talk about more later but the idea is that after that the person does breaks all the precepts
and as you would expect right just as you would expect if good or bad actions leaf a bad results just as one would expect the person is reborn in a bad situation gets their just desserts for their activity there's one kind of person he says
but there there are also a second kind of person a person who kills living beings etc etc etc repeating the same thing in other words this is another this second kind of person breaks all the rules
and
after the death of that person lo and behold there are not born in the evil states and that karmic retribution they're born into heavens and a whole wonderful situation
so they break all the rules but the reborn in the wonderful situations and so no possible nother characters that happens but as as that happens sometimes
the third one
here is a person who abstains from killing living beings upstairs from taking what does not given up stands for misconduct and sensual pleasures abstains from false speech melissa speech arse arch speech abstains from gossip is not covetous doesn't possess your will
it has right views
and then as we would expect this person would have such an unblemished life is reborn in happy states because good action leads to good results
as as field that's understandable he would expect them
that's the third kind of person but the forest kind of person also abstains from etc etc etc etc
listen an unblemished more alive and this person on the death is reborn into miserable states and pals and so on and
that's the first camper's
and that happens
now of course right away you think ointment
the actions lead for good results and that actions the the bad results so how come
maybe a dozen maybe it doesn't know what kind of a lot is out and then what's the percentage for me
acting good do not acting bad as active that is more fun and i can either may or may not something about well in either case you know what what's the point
in the bruce as yeah that's that's right i may or may not work out
so now we're wondering what's going on what's the good of trying to tell us
so then the next part we have we run through the same for possibilities only now
we are introduced to a hypothetical
ah seer
now again you have to understand this is this is india five hundred bc and just as the idea of future last of past lives is just accept it
it's also accepted that there are i mean the whole world of meditation trance states
clairvoyance clairaudience and so on it so and so on is except i mean these people did not have anything like price he also didn't have television cell phones anything like that so all their fun and all their creativity went into this sort of thing and
they were really good at
and so there probably were people who could enter into
it translates through practicing various sorts of austerity is not not these are not buddhist pundits this is just anybody who was there's a million people in buddhist time but it was was one of many many religious leaders of the day of each of whom have his or her own approach
and there was so there were a lot of people who have this kind of power it was not unusual
so here is a hypothetical person who can enter it translates and who can actually see
past lives of future lives who can see beings you know through translates who are reborn here and born there and saw that's how they knew at these things were really true because they could see it from there translate just like the tibetans do this you know when one can read even in modern times of tibet and soup
figure out this is the report revert to that person over there because i started a vision and i gave him the badger and they picked it up and they knew it and sought some seems unbelievable but somehow these things that happen anyway these people could actually see
this thing going up so here's what what do they see in relation to the sport possibilities so here and under by means of ardor endeavored devotion diligence and right attention some reckless or bremen attains such a concentration of mind that when his mind is concentrated
with the divine i which is purified and surpasses the human
he sees that person here the first person who kills living beings holds the wrong view etc etc now i have breaks all the precepts and he sees on the dissolution of the body that that person reappears in a state of deprivation
unhappy destinations and tradition even and help so he actually sees that so it's not a question of speculation this person sees it that really happen
have you seen that he then says yes indeed it's true there are evil actions and there was a result of evil actions for i saw a person here who killed living beings and held on sept etc and i see that on the dissolution of the body after death this being reappeared in a state of deborah
ovation even in health and then says therefore i know from seeing that that on the dissolution of the body after death every one who kills living beings will receive that kind of just desserts
and those who agree with me i write and also disagree with me around because i saw this and i understand and this ducey obstinately adheres to what he sees somebody on and discovered and he says this is the truth and everything else is fast
okay so he sees that first kind of person he says that makes sense but now of course the second kind of person is a little problem that
because now he sees the same person enters into concentration state
you know gets his clairvoyance seeing beyond the veil of birth and death sees a person who
kills living beings etc
and this person is reward in heaven
and he says that and he knows that's really what happened there's no question about it
then he says okay i saw that so now i know
that there are no evil actions
and there is no result of misconduct
and i can see that this person who did all these evil actions is reborn
in a state of happiness
so
he says on the dissolution of the body after death everyone who kills live in bands etc etc etc
reappears in a happy destination so he's generalizing from the case that he saw this as well then if you do bad things must be that you get a good reward
and those who are
see that now i write notes who don't see it iran
third one
and present a transit center etc
sees a person who is very good and abstains from wrong conduct etc etc that person reappears in a happy destination et cetera et cetera
and he says off and indeed there are a good actions and good results
and so anybody who doesn't see this is wrong and what he sees a threat
dennis is all very like comparing mathematical you to the fourth one
seeing someone who are
and it start
moral conduct is understand
and despite that reappears and unhappy destination
and he says there are no good actions i see savvy that now i know that there are no good actions and there is no result of good conduct for i saw a person here who did the conduct and received their results of their canopies must be the this whole thing about karma and results is not really true because i saw the opposite of that happen
okay so then the buddha says well another
when that seer
says
indeed there are evil actions there is result of his conduct advantages
what he says i saw a person here and kill them veins in central cetera
and he reappeared feared and a bad state i granted this
but
when he says on the dissolution of the body after death everyone who kills living beings race the precepts center cetera
reappears in a state of deprivation blog i even in hell i do not grant him the
in other words yes it's true bad actually it's the bad result for nationals to good result yes it's true you he saw that it was effective in that case but he made a mistake
and generalizing from that one condition to all conditions to say that everyone would be because it's not true that everyone who does bad will be reborn bad states
so in other words you know meditative trance ah
skill
doesn't go far you have to have a real understanding of how things are beyond the artistic
accomplishment of meditation practice because this these people are powerful meditators and they see things that we can't see and their meditation is really true and the things that they're seeing is really true the only thing is that they don't understand properly what they're saying they're making generalizations and
philosophy you know based on what they've seen that's actually iranians so they did see what they saw yes but when they say that because i saw this one thing and that's true for everybody there are more complicated
and when he says those who know thus notoriety those who think otherwise are mistaken i also do not grant of this and when he obstinately adheres to what he himself as known scene and discovered insisting only this is true anything else is wrong i also have been that's why is that because
my great exposition of action is different from this otherwise
then he goes on
go through the other than while some of these exactly the same way
i grant you know that
a and that he saw a person
steps and was reborn in the happy destination
he did see that
it's true but when i when he
extrapolate from that and says there are no such thing therefore as evil actions and evil results and then everyone who goes around breaking precepts is going to be reborn and a happy situation
i don't agree
my understanding it's not like that
and then unwrapped the three get picture same thing you feel for you
so we're still perplexed right
we're still not sure so so what's the story
what about this
and this is interesting point because this is one of the biggest problems of theistic religion
the god is good guys just
god says you know do this don't do that
but i follow the laws and rules of god and i wasn't good person and what could happen to me
my children were all killed and boils all over my body all my cattle were destroyed and were wasting away
and yet there's no reason for that so what about a guy
i'm really losing my faith in you
this is the story of joe brown insisted big problem in theistic religion so the same thing was noticed by buddhist practitioner so this is buddhists discussion that question
so now the good assist now here's here i'm not a number seventeen on page ten sixty four
there is another
and here's the
hey here's the explanation there you know like this is where it is
therein and under as to the person here who kills living beings etc etc etc
and on the dissolution of the body after death reappears in a state of deprivation even in health
either earlier he did an evil action to be felt as painful
or later he didn't even evil action to be felt this painful or the time of death he acquired and undertook
wrong view
in other words the point is that we saw the person do evil actions we start evil results
but there may have been evil actions not words
immoral conduct
before the time that we saw
or after the time that we saw
it's more complicated than what a person does right now so yes what what happens right now has results but we don't know what we see a result we can't tell whether the result is the result of something that happened and then we saw were there was result of something that happened before that they understand might have been in another life in the past that the purse
listen
so we mistakenly we see evil conduct evil result we think illegal conduct leads to the evil result but the evil result might have been the result of evil conduct over here over there are way over there we don't know that it's connected like them that simple minded way
no it's true that this evil conduct will bear evil results and it couldn't be that the evil result that we're seeing is the result of that evil climb but we actually don't know for sure
could be like literally i like this year when result over here comes from this evil action way over there and this evil action over here has an evil result over there something better so you can't tell us not so simple as you know maybe it'll have like a life just like that
since yes here
broken the precepts than been immoral and centered center he will experience the result of that got the either here and now you might be right here or it might be later we just don't know when for sure
so he will experience the result of that he will conduct either here and now or in the next rebirth or in sub subsequent existence
but one thing is for sure
they will be the experience of that there will be result of the action that will be in accord with the nature of that action even though you can predicted or know when it will arise and when we see an evil result we can't know exactly what action that's illegal result all we can know is that there has been developed
actions in the past or the reverse good results there has been good action that fast this we know even though we can make a wonderland correspondence so that's what he's saying and then of course he goes through all the same once before it again first year person who holds wrong views and etc etc
and ends up and happy destination or we would say maybe happy in this life
somebody who were is really nasty person is somehow they don't lose their children and their cattle and all this stuff they actually do real well and were happy and everything's going fine which doesn't seem right how could that be well it must be that either earlier he did a good action to be felt as pleasant
or later on the words earlier or later he did it for at the time of death he acquired and undertook right view because the as in a very similar to
not very famous and catholicism at the moment of death if you can
turn your heart that is powerful consequences for your future life the same and buddhism it at the end of your life now you can't have to really let go and understand and absolve yourself by letting go of your crimes this is a powerful effect
guess why they whisper in tibetan book of the dead people's ears and stuff like that is hoping that of the aspired in the last moments to really let go of their holding on
grasping this nastiness sister
so when you see a person who does nasty things you know that in the past somewhere along the line that person must have deserved must have done activity to have a given this consequence and then so on the other other
once
so thus unknown the there is action that is incapable of good result
but and incapable of good result and appears to be incapable tourism
like is bad banjo looks like this action is gonna get bad results and and it looks like it does then there's action that is
incapable of a good result
but it appears to be capable
in other words bad action seems to have good result it appears that way but it's not really so
because it is complicating factor that he mentioned and then the other two there is action that is capable of good result and appears capable of good result in there is action that is capable of goodies on after is incorrect
so just let me just finish up and then we made a disgusted because it as many applications to this it's very simple minded thing right now
but actually it's very profound and we have to buy the dialogue your secret can bring up the implications of it
so
the point here is that
and this is something that i think we we appreciate in practice
as our mind becomes more subtle
and we see that karmic consequences or not
on a gross level like you know i said my prayers and so how can buy them a
i mean obviously that's that's a kind of gross that would put on a more subtle level we see i took
care of my mind and heart and i worked with my afflicted emotions and my issues
and i didn't get a cadillac but i feel some more spaciousness in my life or decrease in my suffering we get we can see them and the opposite we can see oh i became angry and i and i shuddered someone and i bad mouth them to all my friends and i see it or if i look
through my meditation practice in my word is back i'm seeing that the truth of the matter is that because i did that on my heart is not at rest and i'm actually unhappy i can feel the effects of that
activity in myself
so we get to see by observing our own conduct that it's really the true
that when we
the act because it in the house of way the result is passing of awesome mind
and when we i act in an unwholesome way the results of this is an unrest in our own hearts
so that we can see
now we know that we have some faith that
positive action is the positive results negative action was a negative result but this is also telling us that beyond that there's dimension
the of activity that we can't see that's beyond what appears to us in our online stream
and that bad and good actions would definitely reap the appropriate rewards regardless of how it appears
and that comic results are richly complicated
and and has to do with her
the quality of our being many factors that go into activity
so
to canada we develop a kind of faith in this so that
we feel that positive actions we should do and we want to do
a negative action were thought we want to avoid
we don't really know said
we can't really
ah control or depend on how at the next moment is gonna be because we might receive in the next moment some karma from some other sphere
but even so
we have faith in the
the truth of this law of karma so that we might for example
something that my angeles really practice very hard and work on her mind and our heart something bad might happen when we might get sick or something
this doesn't make us feel as if com is not real it just makes us feel like oh well i only see this much in the bigger picture there are reasons for this
if i now meet this condition with a positive mind i have a chance that increase the good if i i get disgruntled because this condition came to me because of forces that i can't see and then i begin to become negative behind this condition and i'm create bad factors in my mind
now for the future
so that's the idea now we have to explore the summit when did you ask
and sixteen and can ever seen
hispanics the mechanism
some kind of
after an islamic sound effect and satellites but
yes well
you know the i don't recall should have been studying goes into this
and
it says
but there's different kinds of actions some actions are they called determinant
that that some sort of certain kinds of actions will be will receive chronic results in this lifetime other kinds of actions will receive current results either in this lifetime or and central central they've all these classifications and categories i don't myself personally i feel like these things are attempts to explain the unexplainable
i don't think it's quite so couldn't drive into myself that's my personal belief
yeah i think the main point is
in a way quite obvious which is we only see so far
in reality is more complicated than what we see
and our lives are caused by a rich tapestry of causes involving the past in the present our conduct the conduct of others and so on and so on
and we know for sure that within the sphere of our own activity we can
you know choose thousand results or not but we can't predict what's gonna happen because causalities were complicated
so i think no matter how much we started the other non kosher was token it feel that we can never know
exactly how things go and they were the most beautiful descriptions the buddhist enlightenment has to do with the buddha
at the time of his enlightenment looking and seeing the vast sea of causality
you know and all the different causes and conditions and all the beings and our lives go the was like the pattern the the mandela of all the karma of all of the universe you know you could he saw
and this is like i said something like the mind of god or something in mind that could not be a human mind but totality of causality
the buddhist are supposedly saw but this is the buddha in in his aspect as buddha not as human being
some sort absolute mind that no individual actually has
so we always only see partially
hmm
i'm a current she original rolling place talks about what quoting recklessly doing
passing out how in turin
a saffron
in any kind of our like it sorted more mercer pay dude's and then we free ourselves to shift into a better class playing same life
ah
so it doesn't like we have a life can be all bad because where that's the colony curtain previous line or are good and the a mixture and you have seen my a shifting come
the
suffering productivity much more joyous heart and i'm not sure if i miss reading like mistake because how my life is too because that's this message group
yeah i think that that what you said is to me is completely in accord with this teaching at the who's given you
yeah
because the realm of choice is how we will relate to the conditions that arise now the conditions that arise now are the result of many things from the past
and it arrives now and this is what it is
i'm miserable on sector whatever it is but how will i be left relate to that but will i do now if i'm i'm deathly ill oh i have hook how they relate to it enough i relate to it in a negative way i'll create consequences of negativity i relate to it apart in a positive way i'll increase my is a
joy yeah and yeah mostly this this world is characterized by mixed results
that is the nature of the world we live in and live all the different possible worlds this is the world in which the results are always mixed
really that's what that's the buddhist cosmology and that's good you say because there are worlds in which the results are not mixed in which the results are entirely positive and other worlds in which the results are taught entirely negative and both those conditions are not as good as than one that we earn the reason why
is because in worlds where the results are entirely positive people have no incentive to practice
because everything's positive so like why word why should we make effort and practice everybody's living the life of riley heavenly goofs off
in result is that when the energy of the positive results where's our
you know they enter another ill which is not so kush
and then i wasted all that time on the other hand people in the neck roms that are entirely negative or so beset by negativity that they can even practice at all
it's too hard and you know we can understand these things actually as psychological states these generals right sometimes we're in a realm where everything's going with the great and i mean we're really happy and it's going really well for us anything we active
get up early forget it you know who lives there and things are going really well i'm really happy that a great boyfriend and girlfriend again plenty of money and love my job and everything will probably know one of my worried about but then of course that usually doesn't last that long you know
even if at last fifty years how long is that not that long at the end of fifty years then his own enough for all gone now what am i gonna do then you're in a totally miserable and you're in despair and you're like totally unique can't sleep at night and indicate that you can't practice them because your misery is so great
that you can't even find your way the question is sit down the cushion and your new demons be set your mind going crazy and it's too horrible mind is so agitated you can't even sit there so there are extreme states and minds that maybe we know about in in either one of those extremes you don't practice because like i stay in one cases too hard and the other case
it's too easy but in iraq situation where we had mixed results we have just enough suffering to give us the incentive
to practice
so that we can reduce our suffering
but not enough suffering to make it impossible to do so
so this is called the realm a saw how world which means the world of patients
meaning there are things that we need to be patient about their difficulties but not so many difficulties that we cannot be patient
so think about them this is the this is the advantage of of our realm there must be a certain suffering actually ah in order for their practice suffering is what is like a suffering is like the young
like the coal they throw in the boiler
that fuels the inject you don't have certain my separate you know going anywhere
yeah
yeah he is my to give rise to a stick mind
can we use mine to consciously choose to turn our karma around by
following the precept soil the hopes of changing our car
if we have to use our intelligence to tour
don't understand or conduct can understand how we can live settlement
it i love relationship to action of a bitch
he hired between carbon liberation
oh
but
liberation is impossible unless the mind is calm and
the tools for the version of present
so that takes good karma that takes clearing a it's almost like you could say
liberation is like walking through a path and words are coming out to a clear but when the weather so overgrown that you can even find the path
you're not going to feel get out of it so you have to like work on clearing that path sort of meticulously
not because the path is in and of itself important and necessary but because it's the way out
so that's like good a bad time you need to you know like trim and cut and find their path and do the walking and then you're in a clear and then when you're in the clear you don't have to walk on that path anymore
so
there's no doubt the i mean own from an ultimate perspective
in a once you're in the clearing and you had walked the path you can say well it doesn't matter whether the path is there another i could have
now that i know the way i could go through a table path
in other words
good at that carvana fundamentally different actually
and there's nothing to condemn and nothing to congratulate oneself or other sport
but practically speaking if we don't distinguish between positive and negative karma and wholesome and unwholesome activity and make the effort to do the wholesome
because we say oh it's all the same anyway this matter anyway then we're kidding ourselves this is you know it doesn't matter if we say it doesn't matter and look at it as though it doesn't matter from the standpoint of self than we're kidding ourselves and we're only going to get in trouble ultimately
one looks that just as the buddha dutch you know and enlightenment knighted sees the range of causality positive and negative accepts it all doesn't say these are the bad people over here do the bad poem these are the good guys over here do a good guy with coma as the buddha i really like these guys and i don't like those guys there who doesn't see things that way to seize the
a network of cause out it's all interconnected by the bad and a good as completely interconnected
there's no separate and there's no better and worse
but practically speaking if we're going to clear up our lives and become free and become happy we have to pay attention to them
and work with it
that's that's very practical and way
misery as does not help and canvey we can work with a decent
why read this i get a little much
i stumbled little bit on someone thinks about future lives
and so i trying try to reinterpret the and a way that makes some sense to me
one of the ways that you get is
if i'm if action has consequences of positive action as positive consequences and negative action is negative consequences if it's going to have a consequence at some point it seems to me that already has that consequence right now and it maybe it's just that and stuff that it's buried right now or that it
it takes really close looking and takes the a good deal of effort to match me see it so that
if you have faith in this law of cause and effect you know that the effect to some extent it's already happening right now and it's inescapable
the smooth wondering if that sounds would write to us that that's one way that i can
think about some of our thanks and the sutra about future lives this asked
applying right now to move each of us oh absolutely not only that but and even in the most oldest traditional texts it's clear that when future lives are referred to
it doesn't only mean it simultaneously means you know the sort of literals simple-minded somebody dies and some other beings born but it also means moment by moment moment by moment there is birth and death and rebirth and so on so it it definitely
does mean that yes
yeah that the the the seeds of
when there's a
negative activity
the seeds of the result
this is a in yoga chart thought into the seeds to see there's a shadow in onto that action which which that appears just like you said as a latent
seed within the consciousness
and so it's their right away
when it erupts into our conscious life we don't know but it's that it's actually their whole time and the other more subtle one could be the more one could pressure that and understand that it was basically red carnation we just just means down the line not right now download
and later we don't know where
when incidents is right now to and idea that a sense to in essence and in fact that's really important to me that if i'm the only way that i can have some kind of faith and cause and effect is to feel like it really is inescapable i can't
i can't get away from it regrets not like gum it's not as easy as saying if i don't believe in future knives yeah no don't know how to work that and i think that the future life or
teaching
has many aspects to it but
one aspect to it has a folk religion aspect to it
the idea that
for a person who does not cultivate the mine in this detailed way
ah the
consequences of actions would not be noticed now and so then if you bring up the idea that well even though you may never later on you're going to set food but are they good
the kind of a folk religion aspect too but in reality again it's clear from the checks that people who cultivate the mine and practice meditation or really work on these things really seek to just so they see for themselves with is so it's not a matter of some life later on they see clearly and i think we we all see that in
we meditate we work on my we do see in subtle ways just like you say
so in other words that i've been wearing the maybe what you're driving out as like a kind of example like yeah i even i don't even say anything mean to you but i haven't i have a negative thought about you
if i am looking at my mind i can see already
from then on the consequences of that in my own mind i don't need a wait for another lifetime to have a word on my head or something because i had that bad thought about you i can just see that now that's true
but that takes a certain amount of mindfulness practices and self awareness but it's true yeah we can confirm and verify these things for sure and you don't even have to wait until it arises in some kind of thumb negative interaction with me it's already take us already there and my own mind because it's in your mind that's right
yeah we
so
then you can use it for future lives and she said or pulling his aspect humor
no that's one aspect the other aspect of this is i always say this you must have heard this a million times with the other aspect is that the teaching about past and future lives brings up the mystery
of this life
which you can appreciate when you witness birth and death
so if you witness birth and death you know by experience there is a strange phenomenon nobody dispassionately witnesses person that's you don't walk into a birth
i mean i suppose like physicians maybe in your themselves to feel of what's going on in birth or death
but a regular person with a relatively reasonable emotional such state walking into verse
is shocked
by the
the next likability of what's going on it
you see a being coming out at first of all the idea of one being comes out of and otherwise like bizarre
and then the thing that comes out of the other one who has never seen the light of day before this moment
already has an enormous personality an enormous bundled tendencies and entire approach to life you know and if you know somebody that you see somebody born and didn't know them for twenty or thirty years after that you see that they're basically working on the same idea
that's a shame as much out there
now why can happen that day makes no sense you know now i don't have the explanation for that and i don't say that past and future lives explains the whole thing but it does i do feel having seen such things that this doesn't quite this little picture that we have that were born we do this we go to school and we go here we go there we at lunch in answer what is
not the whole story
get up and then
the same thing you see somebody die somebody's there they're a person they're suffering and so on and then
they're gone you know when did they go now is it them was it later on where did they go how come word where are they you know and how could it be that somebody was there and then they're gone on their bodies there when it's going on here you know you can't really tell you don't really and if you open yourself to that experience you say i don't really
you know what's going on here actually i don't understand this this is really something that
actually does not fit into my intellectual categories my whole way of understanding life and so on and so forth all these things that i think and do and so forth does not fit into them something else is going on now the way that the that are buddhist ancestors express their
is they talked about past and future lies in there are many reasons and why they use that kind of expression and it's very complicated as much we can say about but that's another dimension to it besides the folk religion dimension
anyway and you know of other traditions besides buddhism has felt the stuff of us past and future lives and of course i'm not up on this myself but
many people tell me that you can read all these books about you know like ripley's believe it or not catch structure
no amazing and they hit on stuff that really is documented about this anatomy are so who knows i may i believe anybody just as it turns it to be good or bad
well let you say as far as concerned you to do is take care of your life right is my yeah that is understaffed can see and try to sleep anyway i could see from the alleys context or something the people that i've actually believed
yeah well it's would appear that fits your karma not to
and fast visualize that as long as you
as long as you how to some serious faith in
you know causality itself and it doesn't matter if you believe if you were to say actually i don't believe in past and future lives plus as far as i can tell it doesn't make any difference what i do or don't do it for my life if you've thought that the new have harsh on practice
then i would just be like this is a great place for a free lunch in ah so that's why i'm here and we would have are tons of the basis
but it's true you know you don't need to use yourself know you don't need to believe in future lives and past lives in order to believe
buy your own experience that there's a way of working with your mind it's effective and there's another and there's a way of being totally oblivious to what's going on that that causes suffering to be oblivious and that working with your neck put your mind and heart
can bring greater awareness and happiness and truthfulness into your life and that's positive so that's all you need you really do the that kind of faith and then takes opium based on experience in of your own experience
but yeah i mean that i always tell the story of glacier right you heard of it
until it many times this the zen approach to intelligence those haven't yet heard me thomas that this is the true story of glacier on movers and ancestors who
announced to his assembled disciples that on his death which was coming soon
he would be reborn
as an ox
which in itself is remarkable because
it's a step down to be born as an m according to them so question to be reborn as an animal
this already it was like astonishing
but beyond that he said and how you'll know that it's made is because the animal will have on
carved into its side the characters chinese characters glacier
and when you see the hundred bucks after i'm dead and you see an oxidized characters glacier on if that's how you'll know
and he said now if you say it's an ox on
what if you say it's question you're also wrong
what is it
so that's this in
ah view of reincarnation
and then a thought
the literal this of reincarnation
is not at all relevant
but the mystery of life as i mentioned the aroma of that pervades the zen literature then understanding of our life but but to get stuck on isn't rebirth is an angry birds or what is that knew someone self worth is not important what's important is
what is it well we don't know what it is
we don't know exactly
and we always have to ask that's the important that we don't that we know that we don't know when that we always try to ask that's how we understand instead of i mean so i observed we don't say there's no such thing as reincarnation snatcher and we don't say it's really true we don't know akin oh she always says we don't know and some time
sir
you know it is
the had a retirement ceremony we always go back for them this point and yeah to retirement ceremony and then their retirements are there was a mondo and i forget how it went exactly them
so people were challenged to go up in ask question of him and
she said something like
are actually get i went but i said something like
anyway somewhere along the line and i'll see i'll see you in i'll see you later i'll see you later like in other words when we're death you will see jim
and he's he's at and agnostic on this point of reincarnation and i'm more
positive on you know and so i said i'll see you later and he said
are you sure
after
and i said yes and he said don't be so sure
thank you so i had want ahead and left

anyway
according to the logic of ordinary life since he's a lot older than me you would think that he would be closer to knowing about this tonight but who else i could certainly he's also as hodgkin's disease and he's eighty one years old but
doesn't mean that i can
enter report before him so we'll see see what the joke's on him removed
yes
so if say is a a good thing then that did suffering never have since it if it leads to a greater understanding of greater awareness
listing that always that it helps to lead to that so is it isn't beneficial than may i for and it as i think suffering and
that's liberation and it's the end of suffering
this seems to and and then return
well just as an important point
then we have to distinguish and we we talked about this one of the classic and about the difference between
suffering
the technical idea of suffering duca know in buddhism different reading that and pain or unpleasant sensations
his long as you're alive and your embody there will be playing pain some pain sometime in unpleasant sensations
but you can except pain and unpleasant sensations with equanimity
and if you can accept pain and unpleasant sensations with equanimity without attachment and version and all that that's not to cut it's not suffering
i mean to us it's unimaginable in a minute for us if there's pain there's always do and there's always a version has always anguish because we hate think we're trying to get out away from thing we want to get rid of it
but if you don't hate pain and don't want to get rid of pain and you are really willing to accept physical pain or or you know since a negative sensations in the mine with equanimity and truly cherish these things
then there isn't too good
and that is what that is what the goal of the chaffetz and sense is to be free of the clinging in the message that we make in relation to pay and that arises in our lives
so you see in a sense of duca as resistance than met making messes that can really in amino now i bet that it's rare
seldom do we do any of us
achieve that
achievement of complete liberation so that whatever befalls us we won't fall back into those patterns of version on
however on the other hand it really is true that many of us
go along way up on that road and into a tremendous extent do alleviate the dupa in our lives and i think all of us to some extent do that otherwise we wouldn't be wasting our time doing all this stuff we we all know if we reflect on our lives you say oh well the truth is that that i was
worse off i really did make a mess events before although i'm far from perfect now and i often repeat the same and so and so on much less than a way much as one less stupid than i used to being as bad as them so in essence we all have a measure of enlightenment
and although we may not be like i say perfect in every guard we are searching
you know getting
so
it it's not all the case then that we cannot clear up a lot of are suffering we can and we can even get a place where it will never arise like a buddha or in our hottest one from the suffering never will arise that kind of suffering and and we really this is why the van
images like in zazen a can
yeah painful legs this on
painful back in zazen you can experience this very clearly and concretely of seeing that when there's a pains or arises in the body and you don't resist it and you accepted in some fun way it doesn't hurt
minutes i think
how contain not hurt while you realize that the hurt his mental
paying his physical and hurt his mental the hurt is complaining and grumbling him
sometimes you literally because of your grumbling try to crawl out of your own body to pay which causes more pain it on me and you get to see on while pains there are so it's not that bad and i didn't mind in fact i can hardly feel it even though i know it's there
and that's true of all things that arise in our lives that are to for other unpleasant when we really don't grumble avert and software it's it's can be all right
pain is mixed in with many things can even be pleasant
the makes sense yeah him
let's well as a quick facts right
why is a whale of becoming the same thing as problem
right yeah and that the second question to letting go on attachment
no i understand you correctly says the able to instead it's enough that you do
yikes
it all that you can do is coordinate
they'll let it go is liberation
so many time that one let's go truly let's go that's a moment of liberation and a buddha is someone whose let's go let's go let's go at the moment you're letting go so there's no suffering
who's been all the activity is non-comedogenic activity tasteless activity that isn't answer
girl group
in a field like so that's why we say know if you sit one with is in one minute in zazen that's one minute of being buddha
because ideally doesn't is just letting go making that effort to allow experienced to be there without holding off letting go so that even though there's experience positive negative thoughts on the letting go of this moment after moment makes it three experience free liberated
liberate and experience that like this man intentionally
data
yeah sure that you can do a result of nine nine on arrival in the posh area
really that's kind of like galaxy of the idea of ashtray
well it's the trip point that cause yes we make effort
you make effort then you can you stop and make an effort to let go of all the things that you do
then heaven let go
this sort of like falling off a cliff right
do you get yourself to the edge of the clip and you take one more step and then somebody else falls
her
something like them all
hipster perfectly
in the effort and standards that effort to
yeah in pregnant
net it's not as this is something that actually
you're doing that and that's the smart during yeah i try to control and manipulate right that's why this just point about
you know if that's give make men and the sutra about you know that we can't really predict climate results even though we know that we're going to come about is so important because
has it has to do with control what has to go forward making this kind of effort for the open healthy because if you say i'm making this effort because i'm expecting that this this and this is going to happen and there's a lot of control and that sort of situation
you have to make the effort knowing that fundamentally although you know you feel confidence in you know goodness that what you're doing the positive aspect of it in any given moment you can't really predict what's gonna happen
and you have to be willing to walk forward you know not knowing where you're going in that sense
because if you don't if you're not willing to practice in that way you're grabbing the results of the practice than that's going to that's going to be a of attachment involved with track and that's going to ensure p
the arising of letting go
so you have to like a face each moment
with a mind of i don't know what will happen i have faith in my activity of practice but i really don't know what
and so i'm not attached to it happens or i'm open to it happens and that way you can like of moment

what can you say something about merit in the context of other
well there it is
the storehouse of positive results that we building up because of our trip
so then
we usually when we think of good actions we think of moral conduct
moral conduct through its merits but also things like veneration of brutus in emitter this is a mary usually is a term that's that's associated with liturgy and religious acts that on one level seem like know what does this have to do with anything putting a stick of incense and
a bowl how's that doing good
chania sutra i was actually good making about how that doing good but
the idea is that
member we were saying in a life as mysterious as a big rooms outside of our experienced in those realms those activities are positive actions just like a kind word and a helping hand is a positive action so as offering a stick of incense and sharing sutra and bowing
and those things build up storehouse's of merit positive tendencies in mind that help us along the way i senior
so then now
it's a little bit mysterious to me is how we can give away or somebody else
and i think that the idea of giving away in there is a later development in these early teachings there isn't any such idea
but in later buddhism to the minor of buddhism
which had such a tremendous warm heart or creatures and beings and when really wanted to see all a buddhist practice as an altruistic offering to others
obtain themselves they just had of feel that there was a wedding
my good activity benefiting you there must be away from me to like give some of my good karma to you even though it's clear from early teachings about family this is impossible nevertheless they were convinced that there must be a way of doing in there and they've figured out all kinds of trick ways basically having to do with the fact
that
since when you really get down to it there is no fundamental difference between you and me anyway
you know me like there's no container over here where i'm keeping one they're in the container over there were you like you'd your marriage
so maybe an american like mix up a little bit maybe we could somehow like get mixed up so that some of my mirror can go over to you somehow so they numbers because of the emptiness of phenomenon
somehow i don't know i want to study these to figure out how they because i can hardly wait to see how they can working this out but basically you can see the impulse of it you know wanting to benefit others so there's this idea we can chat a sutra and as we do every single day right
china center in given away zero so that you know we're channeling all the suggests not doing us any good at all except we're giving all the myriad of course getting married away is very meritorious
so you get there are getting me at way know that the economics of marriage
i guess the idea if only the economics of the world works and exactly the same way as yeah economics american draw the wealthy and it would be no problems
yeah
so if it is in codependent corporate crisis harm and
well this is what we're talking a stucco and there's no one
fundamentally to to
received a comic results
of course
you and i don't experience of that way so
given a we are we have to worry about it
the her frame
because reality is that when bad things happen to you you don't like it and i don't like it either and i also like when bad things economic so if i didn't mind if i really didn't mind at all then
and i would mind it would be fine but actually i do mine and even if i say i don't mind and i believe buy online when it comes down to it
because of that i have the brackets from
when i really don't mind that i want to practice
so
can you see
anything is better out practicing
as as well not minding at the time
turning sure you got out when something bad happens
is it beneficial to practice not minding that happens to you at the time well well as that that is it better be honest and say i'm really angry this karina might flip
well if you are really angry that the car van over your foot what it was it
you don't want to it
if the of are there
and you put down on the driver you know that it's driver it's something that isn't necessarily going to be beneficial yeah yeah right so you you try to
you know like minimize the damage it's right
by not beating up the driver but if the draft and weren't there yeah
can you can't is this there's some is beneficial to like up to allow them to arise enough often away if you didn't even know i was within the best thing of course is not demise but but we have to just be with what actually arises what i'm trying to say is if something happens and we feel a certain
way about it we can't say less not feel that way of us
we we feel the way we feel right then as you point out the next thing is what do we do about that do we picked that up and shake it all around and run with it if it's a negative emotion afflicted emotion or do we have turn and say this is inflicting motion rising this is how i feel i feel this you know and i'm just going to breathe with that the with that know
make more of it and i need to
does the way we practice with and yes if we could have equiniti and when something like that happens not just receive it as another moment of our lives that's wonderful
and wonderful but mostly doesn't have that actually
must leave now we're human we don't like when bad things happen
well ah foolish i am like that we're going to read entirely the next children and yeah
but not gonna do that again for next time there's actually two shooters in here
the
this is an interesting sister from the removal of distracting thoughts
how you can forgive and mind in the case of having
afflicted emotions and same soft infrastructure from the practice
this is not exactly
the instructions and refused in our practice for i work with
obstructing thoughts but i thought it would be interesting to the just and kind of compare
our own methods
and then the next church guys folder
translation here is one for child attachment
it's a hard
to translate a red to cannot translate translated as
and this show you how to ranger translations of some this instead of one fortunate attach to be translated as
the better way to live alone
and they both the both translate it's a good reasons why they were champion in that way
sorry red shirts which may we can do both of them the next week of
he began to his next week is the type of africa
don't come next week come to a server and will read those two suitors and hear from to work glasses that one fees from today in the

our