This podcast is offered by San Francisco's Zen Center on the web at sfcc.org. Our public programs are made possible by donations from people like you. Good morning, everyone. It's an honor and joy to be with you all again. And as Koda was saying, many of us at Beginner's Mind Temple and in the online Zendo have been been on a journey, a seven-day Rahatsu Sashim, a meditation intensive, which brings to close our fall practice period. So I want to offer a special welcome to anyone who's joining us just for this morning Dharma talk. And it's wonderful to have you here as well. And for anyone who's not familiar with Rahatsu, Rahatsu Sashim is held each year in Zen monasteries throughout the world to commemorate the enlightenment of Shakyamuni Buddha.

[01:02]

We can think of Rahatsu Sashin as commemorating the awakening of the whole universe through Buddha's awakening and our own as well. And Rahatsu the Sashin culminates in a ceremony marking the occasion of Shakyamuni Buddha's enlightenment, which we celebrated this morning here at Bikinu's Mind Temple. It was a very beautiful, joyous event. So we and all beings celebrated this great awakening, our own capacity for a great awakening. So the focus of the study for both the sushin as well as for the 10-week fall practice period, which we're just wrapping up, has been karma. And the Buddha said, beings are the owners of their karma. They are the heirs to their karma. the originators of their karma and are bound by their karma.

[02:04]

So karma is a Sanskrit word which simply means action or deed. Although in a Buddhist context, it specifically means intentional or volitional action. So the Buddha here is reminding us that we are the originators, the product, and the recipients of our actions. And that's where we're responsible for them. We are accountable for our karma. And it's for this reason at the Buddha talk that karma should be known. Karma should be understood. He said that the cause by which karma comes into play should be known. The diversity in karma should be known. The result of karma should be known. And the cessation of karma should be known. and the path of practice where the cessation of karma should be known.

[03:04]

So these are all dimensions of karma that we've been exploring and engaging throughout the practice period and sashim. The karma's central place in the Buddhist tradition is shown by Chakyamuni Buddha's own pivotal awakening, which consisted primarily of his seeing the full range and extent of karma, including that nothing in the universe stands outside of karma's domain. So this morning, given the occasion, I thought I would share with you the story of Buddha's own karmic path to understanding, working with an ending, or maybe better said, going beyond karma. So I'm going to turn to weave together relevant aspects of the story of his awakening using descriptions in his own words. regarding his insights into karma, and then I'll say a little bit at the end as well about the path that he outlined by which we can all become unbound by karma.

[04:09]

Shakyamuni Buddha's karmic journey began with his birth as Siddhartha Katama roughly 2,600 years ago in the town of Lumbini, which is apparently near the current Nipponese-Indian border. However, According to the legend, it started much earlier. Many lives earlier, in fact. There's quite a number of Buddhist former lives which are recounted in the well-known Jataka tales. And the Jataka tales are very popular stories of his previous births and the lives of the Buddha in both human and animal form. And the future Buddha may, in these tales, appear as a king, as an outcast. as a god, as an elephant. So many manifestations. But in whatever form the Buddha appeared, he exhibited some virtue that the tale thereby inculcates. So the Shikara tales or morality tales, how to be a good human being, how to transform your behavior and character in such a way that you are a benefit to the world rather than of harm.

[05:26]

And in each of these stories, the Buddha's character intervenes in some way to resolve all the problems that are coming up in each story and to bring about a happy ending. And in his last birth, however, the Siddhartha was an Indian prince. He was a prince among a clan of warriors, it's said, who led a life of luxury and pleasure. He was protected and sheltered from life's difficulties until he was 29 years old. He was, you could say, ensconced in his father's palace. And at that time, at 29 years old, he recognized that despite his extremely fortunate and comfortable life, he nevertheless was dissatisfied. So he decided to go beyond the palace walls and then sneaking out one night at the palace, or one day, perhaps, to see what life was outside, the story goes that he encountered what's justly known as the four messengers, representing old age, sickness, and death, and the fourth spiritual quest.

[06:39]

And so, Jonathan was deeply disturbed by what he saw, and confronted by the realization that all beings are subject to these realities. No one escapes. And the fourth insight, that of a wandering monk or a seeker of truth and spiritual freedom was pivotal for him. Seeing the last messenger inspired him to leave his countable existence in search of a resolution of the human suffering that he had become aware of by stepping out of his comfort zone, if you will. And so that night, It's that Siddhartha, as he was known at the time, left his family and his life of comfort to seek an end to suffering and become an ascetic. Now, the Buddha-to-be's quest took place at a very particularly interesting time in India, a time in which the doctrine of transmigration had arisen and spread widely in about the previous two to three hundred years.

[07:50]

And according to the doctrine of transmigration, for anyone who's not aware, beings are reborn, it's said, into this world after they die. And this cycle of birth and death and rebirth has been occurring and will continue to occur for an incomprehensibly long period of time. So we're talking about rebirth here. Rebirth after rebirth after rebirth. However, this wasn't considered a very positive thing. to the people at the time, right? Because it made all of life's fortunes, if you will, seem transitory. Wow, everything's temporary. So why bother? No matter how good you might have it in this life, you may end up in misery in your next one. Or you'll have to experience all the miseries of old age, illness, loss and death all over again. and again and again.

[08:51]

Is there no end to this churning of suffering? So that was kind of the background context. And because of this, many of the spiritual traditions at the time, including the Vedic Brahmanisms and Hinduism, focused on transmigration, on this idea of rebirth and what you could do to affect the circumstances of your rebirth. And the process by which you affected your future circumstances was called karma, which was essentially the law of moral cause and effect. And some spiritual seekers of the time, they focused particularly on how one could actually fully escape from the whole cycle, the whole process of transmigration entirely. And so it wasn't just about having a better rebirth. It was about not being reborn at all in some fashion. So they were seeking some state of being that was more, you could say, permanent, reliable, and transcendently free.

[10:02]

So understanding this context, we can then keep in mind that when Siddhartha was contemplating the inevitability, of old age, illness, loss, and death. He wasn't just thinking about his immediate lifetime. He was actually struggling with a much bigger question, one that human life, of what human life meant. Where was it going? Were we just doomed to... experience these cycles of birth and death and gain and loss and fortune and misfortune all over and over, more or less forever? Or was there another way? The following is a passage from the Polycanism, the Madonna and Micaiah 26.

[11:13]

in which the Katama explains why he left the household life. He said, I, two monks, before my awakening, when I was an unawakened bodhisattva, being subject myself to birth, sought what was likewise subject to birth. Being subject myself to aging, illness, death, sorrow, defilement, I sought happiness in what was likewise subject to illness, death. sorrow, defilement. The thought occurred to me, why do I, being subject myself to birth, seek what is likewise subject to birth? Being subject myself to aging, illness, death, sorrow, defilement, why do I seek what is likewise subject to illness, death, sorrow, defilement? What if I, being subject myself to birth, seeing the drawbacks of birth, were to seek the unborn, unexcelled rest from the yoke, from unbinding, to be unbound.

[12:25]

What if I, being subject myself to aging, illness, death, sorrow, defilement, seeing the drawbacks of aging, illness, death, sorrow, defilement, were to seek the aging-less, the illness-less, death-less, sorrow-less, unexcelled rest from the yoke, So when Buddha describes his search for the undefiled, unexcelled rest from the yoke, that is from being bound by karma, he's referring to liberation from the cycle of transmigration. The tradition has it that for six years Siddhartha wandered in the wilderness. practicing with several teachers of alternative religious sects and excelling at various meditation techniques that they taught him. And his teachers emphasized the potential for an individual to deeply perceive, to perceive deep universal truths and achieve liberation through meditative discipline, specifically through meditation.

[13:40]

So Siddhartha even spent a number of years, you know, practicing extreme forms of, for example, asceticism, in order to be free of clinging to the body. As some traditions believe that the body was heavy with karma, that karma was actually a substance of sorts, that the body was heavy, that karma clung to the body. And therefore, if you practiced these, say, practices, kind of basically... denying or depriving the body, that karma would somehow, the body would be lightened in some way. You'd be kind of freed up of your karma, which was heavy. However, having eventually become severely emaciated and then exhausted, even on the verge of death from these practices, the Buddha realized that his strongest efforts in this area were futile, and that these extremes of self-mortification, they were not the answer he sought, nor the freedom, the way to freedom.

[14:45]

So he came to consider that there was what's called a middle way, a middle way between the extremes of, you could say, on one hand, vital pleasure, and on the other hand, a radical self-denial. So after said after accepting some sustenance, some nourishment in the form of a bowl of milk rice porridge that was offered in by a young woman named Sujata, he considered what might be a better way. And at that point, Sujata remembered a time when he was just a boy, sitting you know, in his father's fields, under a rose apple tree. And he was just absorbed in kind of the pleasantness of the day and having a serene state of mind. So Sturka thought that this focused meditative state, you think about the meditation of a child, could be helpful to realize the freedom that he saw.

[15:59]

So, he decided to seat himself in meditation under a tree. It's called the Bodhi tree. Determined not to rise again until he had achieved complete understanding and liberation. So now, according to the Jarmada Nikaya, Sutta 36, once the Buddha's mind was purified, if you will, by concentration, very focused. His mind was very focused. His enlightenment unfolded by way of what is called the three higher knowledges. And the first of these is the Buddhist knowledge of his past lives. Recollecting his previous lives is going back and said hundreds of thousands of eons. Very, very, very long time. And the second of his knowledges was the knowledge of death. and the rebirth of beings, which involves here understanding how beings transmigrate according to their karma.

[17:08]

And the third knowledge was that he was free of all obstacles, all deformities, and hence released from all attachments. So what I'd like to do is share how he describes each of these acknowledges as he gains them, if you will, because each of them served as foundations for his particular view and later teaching on karma. So, as I said, in the first knowledge, he had a vision of his previous lives. This is what he said. When the mind was thus concentrated, purified, bright, unblemished, rid of defilement, quiet, malleable, steady, and attained to imperturbability, I directed it to the knowledge of recollecting my past lives.

[18:13]

I recollected my manifold past lives, that is, one birth, two, five, ten, fifty, a hundred, a thousand, a hundred thousand, many eons of cosmic contraction. I like that he uses the word contraction because our sense of self and you could say rebirth itself is a form of contraction, contraction of the wide open state of mind. So many eons of cosmic contraction, many eons of cosmic expansion, many eons of cosmic contraction and expansion. There I had such a name, belonged to such a clan, had such an appearance. Such was my food, such my experience of pleasure and pain, such the end of my life. Passing away from that state, I arose there, re-arose there. I was reborn, in other words. There, too, I had such a name, belonged to such a plan, had such an appearance.

[19:15]

Such was my food, such was my experience of pleasure and pain, such the end of my life. Passing away from that state, I re-arose, or was reborn here. Thus, I remembered my manifold past lives in their modes in detail. So every one of his lives he remembered in great detail. That was his first insight, his first knowledge. And because of his remarkable ability to perceive past lives, Siddhartha was then able to move on to the second phase, if you will, of his enlightenment. He turned at that point his attention to the transmigration of all beings, not just himself. And in doing so, was able to perceive the workings of karma, the law of moral cause and effect, as I called before. So I'm going to read another passage in how he describes second knowledge. And here, the word karma, the Pali word for karma, is the Turks here use karma, which is

[20:22]

the Sanskrit word. So this is how he describes it. I discern how beings are inferior and superior, beautiful and ugly, fortunate and unfortunate, in accordance with the Kama. These beings who were endowed with bad conduct of body, speech, and mind, who reviled the number ones, held wrong views, and undertook actions under the influence. influence of wrong views, with the breakup of the body after death, have reappeared in the plane of deprivation, the bad destination, the lower realms in hell. In other words, they were reborn in hell realms. These beings who were endowed with good conduct of body, speech, and mind, who did not revile the noble ones, who held right views and undertook actions under the influence of right views, With the breakup of the body after death, have you appeared in good destinations in the heavenly world?

[21:29]

So there are Buddhist cosmology, there is said to be six realms, and the lowest realm is the hell realm, and the so-called highest realm is the heavenly realm. Thus, with the divine eye, I saw beings passing away and being reborn, and I understood how beings passed on according to their actions. So what the Buddha gained through his second knowledge was an understanding of the qing of dependent origination. In Pali it's, however, it is, how it is, dependent origination describes how it is that our volitional actions are what it is that spin the wheel, set into motion the wheel of samsara or suffering. And this involves understanding the dynamics of how karma, in conjunction with the basic defilements of ignorance and craving, bring about rebirth.

[22:41]

While still deep in meditation, Siddhartha then carefully examined the workings of karma. And he was intrigued by his observation that right and wrong views, as he describes them, were intimately related to the behavior of beings and to the repercussions of their actions. So Anjan Tanasaro said, in commenting on the Buddha's insight into the three knowledges, said that this led Siddhartha to consider the possibility that karma was primarily a mental process. It was a thought process rather than a physical one. Therefore, Siddhartha used his own mind, you could think of as a laboratory. He was his own guinea pig. And he studied the mental phenomena in his mind. that led to negative or unwholesome karma.

[24:01]

And so in the meditative traditions of his time, things that were seen to lead to negative karma, and therefore unfortunate rebirths, were called asavas, which can be translated as fermentations or defilements. So here is how the Buddha describes his seeing into the third knowledge. which was the final insight which led to his awakening. And the version I'm going to read here uses the Pollywood word dukkha, which is often translated as suffering or unsatisfactoriness or unease or dis-ease or stress. So you can keep all those meanings, connotations in mind as you hear the word dukkha. But sometimes there's that efficacy, I think, to just leaving the word in its original. Pali. So here the Buddha is talking about the origin and the cessation of suffering.

[25:02]

When the mind was thus concentrated, purified, bright, unblemished, rid of defilement, quiet, malleable, steady, and attained to imperturbability, I neglected it to the knowledge of the ending of the mental defilements. I discerned as it was actually present, that this is dukkha. This is the origination of dukkha. This is the sensation of dukkha. This is the way leading to the cessation of dukkha. These are defilements. This is the origination of defilements. This is the cessation of defilements. This is the way leading to the sensation, to the cessation of defilements. My heart, thus knowing, thus seeing, was released from the defilement of sensuality, released from the defilement of becoming, released from the defilement of ignorance.

[26:10]

With release, there was the knowledge released. I discern that earth is ended, the holy life fulfilled, the task done. Another translation of this last line goes, knowledge arose in me and insight. My freedom is certain. This is my last bird. Now there is no rebirth. So this third knowledge is described as the knowledge of the four noble truths. And if you listen to it, you can hear it in there. the truth of suffering, the truth of the cause of suffering, the truth of the end of suffering, and the truth of the path that leads to the end of suffering. And I'm going to say a little bit more about the Eightfold Path shortly. But tradition has it that the timing of his final insight into the nature of karma and freedom from karma coincided with the appearance of the morning star on the horizon.

[27:20]

And seeing the star said, he said, as if it was for the first time, he broke through the agony of his years of struggle and seeking, and he realized the nature of the self, of his true original nature. And at that moment, he woke up and became the Buddha, Buddha meaning the awakened one. So Siddhartha resolved his spiritual question, he achieved his goal, and becoming awake, came the Buddha. And in the process, he was liberated from the cycle of transmigration, and therefore would not be reborn. Now, according to the Theravadan version of the Buddhist enlightenment, as it's recounted in the Dhammapada, upon realizing the release from samsara, or the

[28:22]

suffering-laden cycle of existence. The Buddha is reported to have declared the following. House builder, you're seen through. You will never again build another house. Your rafters are broken. The ridge pole knocked down. All has returned to the unformed. The mind has come to an end of craving. And In the Buddhist expression, we get a sense of what it was that facilitated his insight, that turnkey practice of finally seeing through and letting go of all the components that could rise to a sense of a separate self. Now, a traditional way to interpret the term house builder is as representing the 12-fold sequence or the chain of dependent origination, which I mentioned earlier.

[29:22]

It's a very key, and yet it's not so easily understood teaching in Buddhism. So, again, the Buddha recounted, at the night of his awakening, he awoke to the profound nature of the twelve links of dependent origination, seeing clearly how all beings track themselves in endless cycles of said self, perpetuating confusion and misery. Again, this was the second of the three knowledges into which he had insight that night. And the 12-fold process of dependent origination shows how karma, again meaning actions that are underlaying by ignorance, propel us from one rebirth into another, keeping us trapped in suffering and And it's how it's through our understanding reality, things as it is, correctly, that we can break the cycle.

[30:25]

So the Buddhists said that it is the structure of the 12-fold chain of causation that gives rise to the entirety of conditioned existence. The whole, another phrase, the whole mass of suffering. And interestingly, the original meaning about the Sanskrit and Pali words for karma, mean to build. So the house builder is that which creates the entire structure of karmic or conditioned human existence. Now, another way we can interpret the term house builder is more and more contemporary sense, as it's the manifestation of our ego. The house that the ego builds is a mental structure, a process, which you can think of it as shelters and perpetuates a phantom sense of a separate self.

[31:27]

So the Buddha is claiming that in his awakening, he finally saw the way in which the egoic self continues to build and maintain its house of cards. House builder, he says, you're seen through. The Buddha came to clearly understand the nature of the conditioned mind. It's self-building activities and tools and the entangled infrastructure of karmic wiring and plumbing that extended throughout the entire body and the entire realm of human existence. You will never again build another house, he says. Your rafters are broken. The ridgepole knocked down. So, what is the ridgepole here? The ridgepole, the ridgepole belief in a separate self. And his rafters of reinforcing habit patterns, the Buddha says, have been shattered.

[32:34]

And with that, the entire edifice collapses. All has returned to the unformed, the unborn. The mind has come to an end of craving. So the conditions to which the separate self depends have been dismantled. Not only have they been dismantled, but the raw material, the seed impulse of craving, has been overcome and done away with as well. And, as the Buddha said, all that remains is is an open field of boundless awareness. When you have no house, you have the whole universe as your home. No walls confining you. When you're not confined to the house of the ego, the whole universe is your true home. So, an awakened being comes to the end of becoming.

[33:45]

It's said. Such a one, the Buddha said, has also come to the end of karma. However, the energy of the previous karmic impulses and results may still need to exhaust themselves after one's awakening. You can think of it much in the same way that a top, you know, a child's toy. If one stops engaging with the top, having it set initially in motion, it will keep spinning until the residual force fades and the top finally collapses. The energy that was underlying its spin, its force, dissolves. And so the top collapses just like the house of the self of which the Buddha spoke. But enlightened beings, the Buddha said, do not generate new karma from their actions.

[34:47]

The Buddha continued to live and act and teach for 45 years after his enlightenment. He just didn't disappear once he had his awakening, right? And so he continued to teach, compassionately sharing his understanding with others. And he said that he taught only one thing. the nature of suffering and the cessation of suffering, how suffering arises and how suffering can be ended. And therefore he formulated his teachings of what's known as the Four Noble Truths, so that people for themselves could find a way to realization. And, excuse me a second. Understanding karma, you can think of us also understanding rebirth and transmigration. Understanding karma as it was originally presented by the Buddha, and in the context of his formulation of the Four Noble Truth, brings insight and clarity to what's known as the Eightfold Path, which is the fourth of the Four Noble Truths.

[36:06]

So I'm just going to wrap up my talk briefly by reviewing the Eightfold Path, which is comprised entirely of wholesome facts. So you have right view, right aspiration, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, and right concentration. So this practice derives, therefore, from the power of karma to create wholesome results, wholesome fruit. Creating wholesome results from wholesome states, wholesome states of mind. also in states of action of body, speech, and mind. And three of the eight factors on the path are, the path is kind of split into, if you can think of it, three pillars. So three of the factors on the path are related to ethical conduct. It's known as sila, which is right speech, which entails refraining from speech that is...

[37:12]

untrue, that's malicious, that's harsh or purposeless. And then there is right action, which entails refraining from killing living beings, from taking what is not given, and from sexual misconduct. And then there's right livelihood, to refrain from wrong livelihood, which in the sutras are defined as trading and weapons. trading in living beings, in meat, in intoxicants, in oral poison. And if you notice, these three, all these three factors are based on not doing unskillful action. This idea is what not to do. Sometimes we are better able to kind of guide our behavior when we know what not to do. What to do is often trickier thing, because it requires more discernment in many cases.

[38:16]

The other five factors have to do with wisdom and meditation. So wisdom, prajna, consists of right you, which means to understand the four noble truths. And then there's right intention, which entails the intentions of renunciation, renouncing what's unnecessary or what's unskillful. and also having the intention of loving kindness and compassion. And then there's the pillar of meditation, samadhi, which entails two aspects. Three aspects, excuse me. There is right effort to guard against and abandon wholesome, unwholesome, excuse me, mind and behavioral states, to develop and maintain wholesome states, and right mindfulness. which pertains to noticing our experience of body, our feeling times, our mind states, and what's called dharmic principles.

[39:20]

And then finally, there's right concentration, which means to abide in states of strong concentration, strong meditation. You're in a state of meditation at all times. And these five factors pertain to the purification of the mind. set. So Uta taught that by practicing, according to the novel, a full path, unwholesome desire and self-grasping have no channel for which to function. There's no way for them to come up and be operated on unless they're eliminated. So the three poisons of greed, hatred, and solution do not rise. And with no desire, greed, hate, and delusion, there's no karma. And with no karma, there are no karma results, karma fruit, to bind the mind.

[40:30]

And with no karma to bind the mind, there emerges a state of clarity. The mind becomes clear, able to see this very seeing transcends suffering. So the mind, which was once chained to and jerked about by desire and self-grasping, becomes one that is guided by wisdom and directing actions independent of the ego's influence. The ego is no longer in the driver's seat. Buddha takes the wheel. if you will, in this case. And an awakened mind, a Buddha mind, settled in equanimity and clear seeing will produce no additional karma. Even, it's said, even wholesome karma eventually must be refrained from because it's still karma.

[41:36]

There's still some, even though you want to kind of send in the direction of wholesome activity, doing good. The main point is to just transcend all kinds of karma. So even wholesome activity can have a quality of residual perfuming of selfing in it, of ego. So even that needs to be let go of in some way. And as no additional karma is created by an awakened mind, any residual karma that remains will simply ripen in whatever time and then fall away until complete liberation and freedom is realized. So the Buddha lived for another, what, 45 years after his awakening. There was still some residual karma. that had to kind of ripen and fall away.

[42:41]

So there were people who tried to kill him. He had difficulties. He had back pains. There were other things in his life. So it wasn't all a bed of roses once he awoke. There was still the residual outcome that had to eventually burn off, if you will. And through... wholehearted engagement of the full path, we can take actions that directly influence the unfolding of our karma and incline our karma towards living a life of lasting peace and happiness. So by being mindful of the Buddha Dharma, the teachings of the Buddha and others, practitioners, and living with the integrity of that arises from following the youthful path, you directly impact karma. In this present moment, you will change the direction of your life by changing your intentional actions and your reactions.

[43:52]

So the Eightfold Path is a framework for clearly seeing your actions and your reactions and how Karma unfolds in your life. Your actions and reactions change as your thoughts become, you can think more virtuous, with more upright, with more integrity. Your mind becomes less distracted, less focused on selfing, reifying a sense of self separation. We're trying to grasp on to the appearances of the world. And when you see the world clearly, wisdom develops and deepens. Wisdom is seeing the world clearly. Okay, so I'll close that. In closing, I want to share a quote that's attributed to the Buddha that I think succinctly encapsulates karma. But it's actually, and I'll just tell you now, it's actually one of those fake quotes that gets passed around on the internet.

[45:02]

So I just want to say it's a fake quote, but I think it's a good one, right? Every morning we are born again. What we do today matters most. In every morning, in every moment, what you are is born again. So what you do in this moment, how you perceive and relate, makes a difference. It determines your life course. It determines your experience of it. It determines your liberation. So you can be free in this moment. You can set the course to freedom from suffering by being aware of how your mind is working in this very moment. Where is your mind? Where is your heart? In what direction is it?

[46:04]

So karma, it's a very complex concept to grasp, right? And we just spent 10 weeks on it, and sometimes, you know, it feels like we barely touched the surface. But at the same time, the fundamentals, I think, of karma are very clear. The Buddha himself actually refined the whole concept of karma in rebirth. Changing it from what was the definition of the concept of karma in his time, through his own experience. So he came up with a new formation of karma by working on himself, by seeing clearly into his own mind, how his mind arose and how he acted on what arose in his mind and through his deep meditation and deep reflection. So I encourage you all to do as the Buddha did by working on yourself through a deep reflection of who you are, and how you want to be in them.

[47:15]

And your personal vision for ultimate happiness and liberation, and that personal vision has to include all beings. Because you're not alone in the world. You're not separate. We're all dependently co-arisen. You and the whole world arise at once. So your liberation, requires the liberation of all beings. And all beings be free requires you to work on your own liberation. So I sincerely, I think that the ongoing study and practice of karma will help you realize your deepest intentions. And as long as you're alive, karma is something we all need to navigate, as well as to continue to study. Right? So to study karma is to study the Buddha Dharma. To study the Buddha Dharma is to study the self and to be free of the self.

[48:16]

So I want to encourage you to continue your study of self and karma in any number of ways that might be meaningful and supportive to you. So I want to thank you very much for your kind attention and patience. Thank you for listening to this podcast offered by the San Francisco Zen Center. Our Dharma talks are offered free of charge, and this is made possible by the donations we receive. Your financial support helps us to continue to offer the Dharma. For more information, please visit sfcc.org and click Giving. May we all fully enjoy the Dharma.

[48:54]

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