Actually, I'm not going to say that much about ethics very specifically. I'm going to talk in a more general way about the principle that underlies Buddhist ethics, which is karma. Yeah, so I'm going to begin by saying something about what karma is not. Sometimes it helps to define things in terms of what they're not because there's often a lot of misconceptions and I think in particular there's a lot of misconceptions about what karma is within Buddhism. So I'll go into that, then I'll talk a bit more positively and say something about what karma is and under that heading I'm going to talk about karma in terms of the most general and fundamental Buddhist philosophical idea or principle of dependent origination. I'll say a bit about that later. I'll also go into describing the Buddhist analysis of the human being in terms of anatar or in terms of no self, no fixed self. After that I'm going to say a bit about rebirth and how that connects to the idea of karma and this will mean going into the idea of different realms, the so-called six realms. I've just put for a bit of visual interest. I've put a picture of the the wheel of life there, Tibetan wheel of life and the six realms are here. And then to finish off I'll say a bit about how all this relates more specifically to the practice of ethics and morality. In the course of doing this I hope to answer or at least address a few questions. First of all there's the Glenn Hoddle question which you may be familiar with. Is everything that happens to us, the result of our previous action? Is everything that happens to us the result of our karma? So I'm going to go into that. Secondly, the question, well if there is no soul what is reborn? Thirdly, is rebirth true and is it to be taken literally or metaphorically? And finally in what ways is karma a useful concept or idea? Actually I think I probably won't fully address all these questions but if I don't you can ask me at the end or you can put forward a question for the question answer this afternoon but I'll certainly address some of them at least to some degree. And I'm going to base my presentation on sources from the Pali Canon and from a post-canonical text called Melinda's questions or the questions of King Melinda. I do want to say that I'm going to try and present a traditional view, a traditional Buddhist view of karma but I don't necessarily agree with all of it and may in some places say where I don't agree with it or where I think it's rather crude and needs to be refined. Ok, so what karma is not, well I've already said that the word karma means action, that's what it literally means. Just to kind of clarify something which may be confusing you, karma is a Sanskrit word but it's also the word is also known in another form in a language called Pali, karma and the scriptures that I'm talking from were written down in this language of Pali but because the Sanskrit form of the word is so well known I'm just going to stick to that, karma action. So I think there's a popular idea of karma that it means something like fate or predestination. So when something bad happens to you somebody comes along and says ah that's the result of your karma, you had that coming to you, that was inevitable. So the implication is that things that happen to you particularly bad things I think that happen to one are some sort of retribution for the bad conduct that you've performed in the past. I think this is quite a popular idea and even there was no escape, there was no escape from these consequences they were bound to happen. This is the way that sometimes people talk and the best that you can do is to accept your punishment or retribution and in this way be purified by doing so. So this kind of idea that the universe is there waiting to give you what you deserve. This is to see the universe as some kind of a rewarder and punisher, a rewarder for good conduct and a punisher for bad, almost as though it was some kind of god or power of that kind. And so karma is seen as some sort of inescapable inevitable law, perhaps not dissimilar from say the law of gravity. You throw a body in the air and it falls, that always happens, you know, unless you're in space or whatever. And I think sometimes people see karma in this way, you know you act badly and you're going to get punished for it, you act well and you're going to get rewarded. I mean this is extremely crude, an extremely crude model of karma and in some way it's quite mistaken. But where does it come from, this idea, why do people think this way? And to understand this I think it's useful to go into a little bit of history because actually Buddhism isn't the only tradition that has a notion of karma, it's a kind of pan-Indian idea and we find it in what we call Hinduism and Jainism too, two of the other Indian religions and actually at the time of the advent of the Buddha there were ideas of karma already, you know, in circulation ideas of karma and rebirth in what's called the Vedic tradition, the Vedic Brahminical tradition. A Vedic tradition comes from the Vedas, sacred texts of what we now call the Hindus or some of the sacred texts. Anyway according to this notion, this Vedic notion if you like, one's born into a particular station in life, even a particular caste, due to one's previous karma, it's all determined by one's action in one's past life. So given that that is the case, in this life one's duty is to perform, you know, one's caste functions, so if one was born to the lowest pile, if you like the lowest strata of the pile, you should just simply get on with that, live out your allotted function and in doing that you can look forward to a better rebirth next time round. So importantly you shouldn't try to change your social status, you should just accept it, get on with it and as I say, if you do that, you know, fully, you'll get a better rebirth next time. Again this is quite crude, but it's not completely too far from the truth. I mean I don't think it's quite like that really. I think rather than seeing it as this sort of inevitable law that if you act this way you'll get this kind of rebirth, et cetera, I'd rather see it more as an organic principle or as a general rule, if you like, that admits of quite a bit of variation and flexibility. So as a general rule one will reap the consequences of one's past actions, but we need to understand how this works, fully how this works. It doesn't mean that every individual little wrong that you do, every little lie that you tell, every time you swear or whatever, the universe is going to find some way to pay you back, suddenly someone else is going to come along and swear at you or lie to you. It's not quite as crude and simple as that, although actually some of the Buddhist texts present it in that way. Some of the consequences of one's actions may be so minor as to be invisible or negligible, you may not be able to see the consequences. At the same time as well, two people might actually commit the same act or what appears to be the same act with very different consequences and the difference in these consequences can be explained through karma. I'm going to go into that in a bit more detail shortly. Just want to say one more thing about what karma is not or what rebirth is not and what it is not is it's not reincarnation. The idea of reincarnation is that we have this fixed identity, this soul, this kind of essence that is us, our core that transmigrates from life to life as though we transplant it from one body to the next body in the new life. This is not the Buddhist idea of rebirth. How does Buddhism see it? How does Buddhism see the self? Well, I'm just going to come on to that. So what karma is? Well as I said earlier, the Buddhist notion of karma has got to be understood in the light of the most general and fundamental and comprehensive Buddhist doctrine, which is the doctrine of dependent origination. I haven't got that much time to go into this doctrine in a lot of detail, but I'm just going to go into it briefly. According to this doctrine, as I say, the fundamental, if you like, metaphysical idea or doctrine of Buddhism, all things, everything arises independence on conditions. And when those conditions cease, the thing itself ceases. So just for example, this event that we're participating in arises independence on conditions. The vision of organised this event, they've sent out publicity. You came here, I've come here, and we're here, and we have an event. Later on, maybe about four o'clock, while all have gone, an event will be over. So it has come about independence on conditions and will cease again when the conditions cease. In some ways, this seems trivially true. It seems very obvious and straightforward, I'm sure all of you could understand what I just said about this event, arising independence on conditions. But we tend to look at other things, perhaps not events, but objects in isolation. And we see them as having some identity, some independent nature, that's independent of their surroundings, and they have an identity that persists through time. And I think the reason, or part of the reason why we do that, is that we can name things. So, I'm named Naga Priya, and one attaches to this name, various qualities, traits, etc., that maybe one sees persisting through time. And one then moves from that to think, ah-ha, yeah, there's something that defines this person, that is Naga Priya, there's some essence there. But from a Buddhist point of view, this is a mistake. Continuity does not mean identity, does not mean permanence. And in a way, I'm going to be playing around this distinction, probably in most of what I say. So let's just look at a natural object, let's say a tree. We look at a tree and we think, yeah, tree has recognizable characteristics, and we tend to, in our mind at least, abstract that tree from its surrounding environment, as though it has some kind of nature, some tree-ness, if you like, that's there. But if we look at it a bit more closely, well, take the soil away, what's going to happen to the tree? Fall over, die, without rain again, you know, it'll just dry up and die. There's many conditions that are needed to keep the tree growing, changing, and staying alive. And if those conditions are removed, well, the tree starts to disintegrate, becomes dead wood, rots again into the soil, maybe provides the basis, the nutriment, for another tree. So I think what happens is that on the whole, and I include myself in this, we lack the imagination to see how things are conditioned, and we tend to see them as having this kind of fixed, permanent nature. And obviously, with things like mountains and planets, it's even more difficult to see how perhaps they're changing, but we just need a longer-term perspective. Okay, so this doctrine has two important implications. First of all, well, because things arise in dependence on conditions, they're impermanent. Whenever, as I've said, the conditions that support that object or event are taken away, the thing itself ceases, shows its impermanent nature. If we see this impermanence, this can lead to what we might describe as a serene withdrawal, a serene withdrawal from attachment to things. A lot of pain is caused from thinking that things are going to continue. So I don't know, we break our best watch, somebody scratches our car, whatever, and we get upset because we're hoping that that watch, that car, is going to stay like that more or less permanently. So everything's impermanent, and if we realize this, there's this serene withdrawal. Secondly, and in a way, this is merely an extension of the first point. Nothing has a fixed, unchanging nature, and that includes us. And this is what's known as the principle, or doctrine, if you like, of anatar or no self, not self. Yeah, so we too, arise in dependence on conditions, and we're constantly changing, both physiologically and psychologically, mentally. Our bodies are constantly changing. We take in food, we pass out waste, we gain more wrinkles as time goes on, maybe a few great hairs, maybe we start losing our hair, maybe we shrink, maybe we grow. And of course, eventually, we die, all of us die. But not only our body is changing, our mind's changing as well. So we develop new habits, we develop new skills, maybe we become happier, or maybe we become less happy. We gain more knowledge, perhaps, over time, and as I say, maybe gain more skills, more confidence. So we're constantly changing. And to kind of draw this out a bit more fully, I want to introduce you to quite an important and fundamental model, a Buddhist model of the human being, if you like. So this is called the candas, or the scandas, the five candas. This is a way, really, of just trying to see how we're constantly changing, and we don't have a fixed nature or fixed self. So there are five candas, or heaps, it's often translated as sometimes aggregates. First of all, we've got vignana, consciousness, then we've got sanyar, aperception. This is the process, really, of kind of interpreting our experience. Like recognizing, say, that's a chair, recognizing that that's my friend, you know, over there, et cetera. Memory, all these sorts of functions that, in a way, we perhaps don't think about too much, but are going on all the time. The process of interpreting our world to make it meaningful, to make sense of it, if you like, sanyar. Then we've got rupa, form, or body. This refers to kind of the physiological aspect of us, all the others are mental. Then we've got venana, which is feelings and sensations. And finally, and in a way, this is the most important one for today, we've got sankara, and I've here rendered it as volition or habit. Because it's translated as volitional tendencies, it's given all sorts of different translations in different places, but let's stick with that for now. So we usually define ourselves, or we usually describe ourselves, in terms of our sankaras. In other words, in terms of our habits, these are usually what are most recognizable about people. You know, such and such, he's into football, you know, such and such. They've got this tendency to talk very loudly, et cetera, things like that. We generally define people in terms of their leading habits or qualities. Such and such is an angry person. Such and such is a very shy person. And we see these things as not really changing. I want to use an analogy to try to kind of illustrate this business about the sankaras, and it may or may not work for you. But I want to use the analogy of a football team. Let's just for argument's sake, call this football team, Manchester United, bit of local color. So we talk in terms of a team, or if you like, in terms of a self, that somehow seems to have a certain identity that persists through time. The sankaras, the sankaras, if you like, are each of the individual players, 11 players. Just for now, there's 11 sankaras. You've probably got a lot more than that, but let's say there's 11. And we think that there's a core to this, but really what is the core? What is the core to this team? Is it Ryan Giggs, or is it Roy Keene, the captain? Well, sometimes they don't play. So when they don't play, where is the core of Manchester United, where's it gone? We still talk in terms of the team having this identity. Actually, there's only a notional sense of identity. The identity comes from description. There is no identity there. We impose that on the experience of these 11 players, if you like. Perhaps you could say, well, what is distinctive about Manchester United is the red shirts. But actually, sometimes they play away. They wear blue shirts, even white shirts. So where's Manchester United when they're wearing those shirts? Perhaps it's the manager, but managers change over time, even if they stay for quite a long time, they move on. Perhaps it's the fans, well, the fans too, grow old, die. There's new fans. All of the players that play for the team at the moment will one day no longer play. There will be 11 new players, but we'll still talk about Manchester United. So you can see there's this constant change going on, and it's not an absolute change. It's not that one day there's one set of 11 players, and the next day, a different set of 11. So there's continuity, players play for several years, new player comes in, one player drops out, et cetera. So there's a sense of continuity, and that's very real. That's very present. But we need to avoid moving from there to think that because there's that continuity, there's some fixed and changing Manchester United in us. Okay. Yeah. I mean, the reason why I'm banging on about this a bit is that we need to understand this, this business about the Sankaras changing over time and continuity, if we're going to understand the Buddhist idea of karma and the idea of rebirth. We could say that if we did have a core unchanging self, we couldn't change, and from a Buddhist point of view, we couldn't gain Nirvana, we couldn't gain enlightenment. So actually, it's a great boon that we're constantly changing. Okay, so I want to move on and zero in a bit more to draw out some of the distinctive features of the Buddhist notion of karma, and in particular, distinguishing it from the Vedic notion of karma. And I want to make two points, really. I'm sure there's more points, but I want to make two. First of all, it's agent-centered rather than act-centered. I'm going to explain that jargon in a minute. And secondly, it operates within the current lifetime, and not only in relation to the rebirth process. So first of all, it's agent-centered. So what was distinctive about the Buddha and the Buddha's idea of karma, as opposed to or as distinguished from the Vedic one, was that the Buddha emphasized the idea of karma. Previously, karma was seen in ritualistic terms, in other words, in terms of the performance of a particular ritual in the appropriate way. So you do this ritual in the right way, and you gain positive karmic consequences as a result. And the most outstanding example of this was the performance of certain rites after the death, particularly performed by the sun, performed for the dead father. And the performance of these rites, in the proper way, would lead to what was called positive karma, which would supposedly somehow be transferred to the departed relative, which would benefit them in the after-death state. I mean, that opens up a whole other area about the transference of karma, which I'm not actually going to go into, but you might want to ask about that at some point. Instead of this, instead of seeing karma in terms of ritual and the performance of particular actions in the right way, what the Buddha said was, what's most important about karma is intention, is the intention behind your action, not the surface of the action. So in many places, karma is equated with cetinar or volition or will. So it's volition or will that is karma in Buddhism. And this is a very radical thing to say, it's a very radical move in terms of how to govern one's conduct and behavior. So action becomes a primarily mental thing as opposed to simply a physical action, you know, physical behavior. But this is not to say that overt action, physical action or speech is unimportant. It's more to say that the ethical quality of a speech act or, you know, physical behavior can only be understood by understanding the motivation that drove it. So you can't simply look at someone's behavior and then know their physical behavior and know that they've performed an unskillful or indeed a skillful action. You need to know more about what was driving them, more about their motivation. So intentions can be divided into two kinds, kusala, which means skillful or a kusala, which means unskillful. So a skillful intention is one that arises from positive emotion and these in particular defined as generosity, intelligence and compassion or love. These are skillful motivations for action. Then the unskillful motives, the unskillful intentions are seen in terms of craving, hatred and spiritual ignorance, delusion. So as I said, the ethical quality of an action can't be understood simply by examining the surface of it. Just to give an example, two people might give me a gift. One of them may give me a gift because he wants to express his gratitude for me helping him to fix his roof very unlikely actually. But maybe, maybe that would happen. So out of gratitude gives to me, the other person wants to ingratiate himself with me because he wants to prepare the ground to borrow some money. So superficially, they're both given. It seems a very positive thing. But actually, they're driven by quite different motives. One at a very positive motive of gratitude, the other out of a desire to try to manipulate me to prepare the ground to get something out of me. So you can see that superficially the actions are the same, but actually, they'll have very different consequences. That's what I'm going to come on to now. The effects of karma, the consequences of karma. So every act that we perform, every intentional act that we perform that is, modifies our being. It modifies who we are. As I've said earlier, we're constantly changing. And what makes us change is each little intention, each little act that we perform over the days, weeks, years, et cetera. Sometimes these acts modify us in a big way and sometimes in just a small way. Depends on the act. These consequences or these effects are called viparkas or fruits. And I think the metaphor or the analogy of fruit is very good because, well, what is it fruit? It's something that grows on the basis of say a tree, if you like. So let's say your previous action is the tree. The tree is there. Then that tree will blossom into fruit. There'll be a natural organic consequence if you like. So it's not that somebody then comes along and sticks some fruit on the tree. It's implicit. It's kind of organic within the tree itself that the fruits will arise, that the fruits will emerge. I think this is quite important, really. It's not that somebody will come along and punish you for being bad, it's that the consequences of your conduct are inherent in the conduct itself. They're inseparable, if you like. And the primary consequence is that you will be changed by your conduct. So let's just take an example, I act out of a very hateful, angry state of mind over a period of time. What will the consequences of that be? The primary consequence will be that I will be a hateful, angry person. That's the primary consequence. There'll probably be other consequences too, like people won't like me very much. They won't want to help me. But these are secondary consequences. The primary consequence is that I will be changed by acting out these particular intentions and volitions. The thing is, it's not always obvious that we are reshaping our being in this way. And sometimes it can take actually quite a long time for the fruits of our conduct to show themselves, either skillful or unschoolful. I don't know whether any of you have read Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray, but it's a very, very good novel and well worth reading. Dorian Gray is this extremely selfish, a stheate, and he's very, very handsome. And I can't quite remember how this happens in the book, but he makes some kind of pact whereby, however, evilly he acts, he continues to look very young, handsome, and people continue to like him. But his portrait, which he keeps in his attic, shows all the marks of his, you know, evil unschoolful conduct. Towards the end of his life, he's still very, very beautiful, people still like him and so on, goes up to the attic and has a look at this picture. And it's all old and, you know, really ugly and, you know, it's all kind of his face, his festering, this sort of thing. And well, actually he dies at that point and if you like, the consequences of his previous actions are then transferred from the picture onto him. Now I don't want to say that Carmar is like that, I'm just using this as an analogy to say that it's not always obvious. So you may, for example, act very, very skillfully and positively for many, many years. And seemingly, all these bad things happen to you, you know, all sorts of things. People are horrible to you, you know, you get mugged, your car gets stolen, and you think to yourself, well, what have I done to deserve this? And actually, maybe you've not done anything to deserve it. Those things happen, or maybe you see somebody else who just seems incredibly selfish and, you know, they just, you know, want to get whatever they can out of other people. And seemingly, they do very well, you know, they do very, very well out of life and you're thinking, well, how can this be true? How can this principle of Carmar be true if this person who's acting so unskillfully is seemingly being rewarded for that? Well, I think, you know, it's a question of confidence. In the longer term, there will be an effect, and sometimes things kind of come to a head and the consequences sort of arrive all at once. But I want to make the point, you know, I'm making this point because I think we can think, well, there should be some sort of quid pro quo thing. I've done this good thing. So where's the benefit? You know, I've done this bad thing, oh, my God, where's the punishment coming from? But it is much more complex than that. And it's probably better to think in terms of a series of actions that amount to a habit and that habit, if you like, has its effect on you as a person, and then it will have wider effects on, you know, your social circle and on the world generally, rather than in terms of individual actions, you know, having much of an effect. Okay. So from a Buddhist point of view, what we're trying to do is strengthen the skillful motivations, skillful intentions, and weaken and eradicate the unskillful ones that if you like is the purpose of Buddhist ethics, that that's what it aims to do. And we do this through purifying the mind, through working on the mind directly, rather than through any external kind of purification. So for example, you know, bathing in the Ganges is not, from a Buddhist point of view, going to bring about purification or, you know, performing some other particular kind of ritual practice is not necessarily going to bring about purification. So I'm not saying that those things won't, but they will only bring about purification if they're aligned with the appropriate intention, the appropriate motivation, the acts aren't enough in themselves. So the kind of practices that a Buddhist engages in are meditation, which aims to work directly on the mind, to change the mind positively, and of course ethics, the following of a particular ethical code, particular set of precepts, and I think it's important to recognize that it isn't simply an external observance of these ethical precepts that will bring about the transformation. There has to be the corresponding intention, the corresponding mental skillfulness, if you like, that goes with it. So you know, one might say, well, okay, giving is seen to be a positive thing in Buddhism. If I give a lot, then I'll become enlightened. But actually, if you give, you know, grudgingly or with regrets, well, actually, that isn't going to bring about this purification. It has to be allied with this open-hearted intention. And of course, that's a process that, you know, we work towards. It's not the case that we're going to be completely pure overnight. It's a process of gradual transformation and purification through action, through meditation, and all the other practices that Buddhists engage in, okay? And well, this will ultimately, this purification can ultimately lead to what Buddhists call enlightenment. It'll lead to a shift away from self-centeredness to another regarding approach to life, if you like, an approach of compassion to life. I want to talk a bit about rebirth now. So according to Buddhism, if one acts skillfully, if one acts out of these positive motivations, one generally will realize a good rebirth. If one acts out of unskilled for one's, one will have a bad rebirth. And the rebirth is seen in terms of six realms. There are two good realms, if you like, happy realms, and all the others are not really very desirable, and that's marked on this model here. So the human realm is seen as ideal, it's seen as the axial realm, because it's the realm from which we can gain spiritual liberation enlightenment. The other positive realm is the gods, which is a very pleasant, enjoyable realm, but can lead to a spiritual complacency, at least according to the tradition. Then we've got the archer realm, which is sometimes called the realm of the angry gods or the warring gods. We've got the praters or the realm of the hungry ghosts, the revenants, the hell beings, which is states of extreme suffering and pain, and then finally the animal realm. And I've kind of given some, if you like, psychological correspondences. So the god realm is a realm of kind of aesthetic enjoyment. The archer realm is the realm of war, power, competitiveness, et cetera. The prater realm is the realm of neurosis and greed, yeah, unasswageable greed. The hell realm is the realm of mental illness, of paranoia, et cetera. The animal realm is the realm of crude appetites, and the human realm, well, is the human realm. The human realm is a balanced realm, where there's a kind of balance of awareness, self-awareness, and there's a kind of mixture between pleasure and pain. Pain is not so excessive as to mean that one is completely caught up in pain, but pleasure isn't so intoxicating that one loses all idea of wanting to work on oneself, wanting to transcend one's limitations. Okay, so that's the six realms. So if one lives a brutal life, a hateful life, maybe one will be reborn in the hell realm. Or if one's born in the human realm, at least according to the tradition, one will be reborn ugly and short-lived. So the tradition at least makes a correlation between our physical appearance and circumstances and our previous karma. So this touches on the Glen Hoddle question. Glen Hoddle, seemingly, I may be wrong about this, but my understanding is that Glen Hoddle said something to the effect that people who are reborn as physically disabled are physically disabled because of their conduct in previous lives. And I was quite shocked and alarmed to read in the daily telegraph that the Dalai Lama agreed with him. I don't agree with this. I think this is, I'm not saying that it's never true. What I would say is that we can't know this. We don't know whether we are reborn as a, you know, disabled or ugly or whatever it is as a result of our previous conduct. I think there are other factors at play which we may know nothing about. One example I've been reflecting on recently is the example of the drug thalidomide which was a drug that was administered to pregnant mothers, I think in the 70s or somewhere around their maybe 60s. And this led to quite severe physical impairments and disablements in the children. So how do you explain that the mother took this drug as being a result of the previous karma of the child? It just seems crazy, really, to explain it in those terms. It would seem much more straightforward to explain it in terms of physiological factors. Well, you know, the mother took this drug, it had an effect on the growing fetus and these were the consequences. I mean, I wouldn't like to rule it out altogether as saying that, say, one's physical appearance is never a result of one's previous actions. I don't know about that. But what I do want to say is that we shouldn't jump to this conclusion and say that, ah, you've been reborn this way, that's because this is a punishment for your previous conduct. In fact, the Buddha himself in several places says that the results of karma is one of the imponderables. We can't actually know what the consequences of karma will be or, you know, we can't always know that something, if something that happened to us was a result of karma or not. I mean, similarly, things that happened to you in this life, you know, can we think that they're all the result of our previous karma? Well, let's take something as tragic and grim as the massacre in Dunblain. I believe that at this school, someone walked into this school with a gun and just indiscriminately shot quite a lot of the pupils. So how is it then that this guy is going to work out which of the pupils he has to shoot? You know, which are the ones that need to be punished for the previous conduct? If you think about it, it's ridiculous. At the same time, I'm not saying that things that happen to one in one's life are never the result of one's karma. I think they quite often are and I think we do draw certain experiences towards ourselves. We have a certain affinity with certain experiences or certain people, if you like, because of the kind of habits that we have. But I think it's much too simplistic to think, ah, such and such, something bad has happened to them, must have been something bad in their past life. Yeah, so what I want to say is that other people do not function as agents of your karma. It's not other people's job to go around punishing you for your previous karma. That isn't how it works. There's a complex interaction of karmic streams. We've got our karmic stream. We've got somebody else's karmic stream. When they come together, something happens. But what happens is not a punishment for our previous conduct. It's simply the organic consequences of these two karmic streams interacting. I mean sometimes one may act very unskillfully and not suffer at all, at least in this life. So for example, a war criminal might escape punishment. Similarly one might act very skillfully and suffer. So a saint might be murdered, for example. So you know, if one sees karma in terms of external consequences, it doesn't really add up, it doesn't make sense. So instead we've got to see it in terms of the effect on the mind. So the war criminal may be plagued by a bad conscience, or at the very least their emotional sensitivity is going to be severely impaired by the evil conduct that they've done. The same time, the saint presumably is going to feel free conscience or clear conscience even while they might suffer for it. Yeah. So just to summarize, we may have been born into the human realm as we all have been as a result of previous karma. But many of the circumstances that we experience and meet in the human realm may not necessarily or may not be results of our previous karma. There are other factors such as weather, climate and biological processes that will play their part. Okay, so just to kind of push on towards the end, if there's no self, what is reborn? Well I want to just refer to an illustration given by the monk Naga Senna in this text, the Melinda's questions that I mentioned earlier. This is what Naga Senna says, "It's like a fire which a man might kindle and having warmed himself, he might leave it burning and go away." Then if that fire were to set light to another man's field and the owner were to seize him and accuse him before the king and he were to say, "Your Majesty, I did not set this man's field on fire. The fire that I left burning was different to that which burned his field. Still he would be responsible." So this is Naga Senna's illustration of what is reborn. As you see, in a way it's not an explanation, it's an image and I think that in a way this indicates the difficulty or the problem of trying to explain what is reborn. Actually, it's not very easy to conceptualize and the best way to talk is in terms of this image and I think fire is a very good one because it's very difficult to see any heart any essence to fire, it just kind of spreads and one fire gives rise to another but actually what passes? If you have one candle and you like another candle, what passes? The first candle is still there but the first flame rather is still there but it gives rise to the second flame. What passes? Okay, so that's my non-answer to what is reborn but just kind of to give something a bit more to chew on. What we could say is what is reborn is a bundle of tendencies. When we die, another being will be born that perhaps in some way inherits some of the tendencies to action that we have. Some of the leading qualities or leading characteristics will be inherited but again they may change in the new life. So from a Buddhist point of view, we're not born as people sometimes say as blank slates where reborn with tendencies to behave, think, live in particular ways. Okay, just to conclude, I just want to say just a couple of words about what the escape from karma because from a Buddhist point of view, the aim of life is actually to escape from the process of karma, rebirth, karma, vipaka. Buddhism talks about the world in terms of Samsara. This is the world as we know it and Samsara is the fairing arm. And so the Buddhist sees his life, his world in terms of a constant birth and rebirth lifetime to lifetime. I think it's quite difficult for us to get our head around this because we're very, well generally, very materialistically conditioned and we just think, well, born, die, that's the end of it but many Eastern traditions think very, very strongly in terms of this constant round of rebirth and it's seen as a painful and undesirable thing because life is so uncertain even if you act skillfully, still bad things may happen, still you may experience a lot of suffering or dukkha. So from a Buddhist point of view, the aim is to escape from this process of karma and karma vipaka and well, this is done through gaining spiritual insight or what we call enlightenment. So when they die, what happens to an enlightened person? Well, nobody knows or rather the Buddha refused to say, perhaps he couldn't say who knows what he was thinking but it seems that this is a question that we cannot answer. Some traditions say that an enlightened being may undertake future rebirth voluntarily in order to help other beings, in order to help them gain spiritual release and this brings about the notion of the Bodhisattva or the enlightenment being which maybe you've come across and yeah, the Bodhisattva deliberately undertakes rebirth out of compassion in order to help other beings to spiritually release themselves. This principle by the way is very much embodied in the idea of reincarnated spiritual llamas in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition, so traditionally the Dalai Lama is thought to be an enlightened being who over lifetimes takes rebirth in order to help beings, okay? So I'll stop there and I hope that I've given you some ideas about karma and about the notion of rebirth. I kind of feel that I've probably raised more questions than I've answered but I think these things are a bit like that really, but at least I hope that what I have done is perhaps presented a slightly subtler model of karma and rebirth than maybe you've come across so far or at least models that I've heard that are in popular currency. Yeah, so we've got a bit of time, the questions maybe ten minutes or so. Yeah, from the animal realm up. Well, I think this whole business of the six realms is pretty difficult actually and I'm not sure, I'm not sure how I take it. See traditionally speaking, the animals don't perform karmas, they're not self-conscious, so they don't act skillfully or unskillfully. So the question arises if you're in the animal realm, how'd you get out of it? I don't really know what the answer to that is. There's different ways you could approach it, one thing you could say is that you could say that the animal realm is purely a resultant realm, so in other words you move into the animal realm because you've performed certain unskillful actions and once if you like you've exhausted those results you'll go back to the human realm. I'm not sure if that's true but that's one way that you could talk. Another way that you could talk about it is to say that perhaps the best hope that an animal has got is contact with human beings. Through their contact with human beings they may actually, you know, some sort of self-consciousness rubs off. For example, in the case of dogs, you know, dogs do quite well. But I personally feel that this animal thing, I think it's a bit, I don't think it really fits together that well, that's my own view. But I think probably in, I think in traditional terms, I think the way that they would more tend to see is a realm like the animal realm is simply a realm where you go to burn up the results of unskillful action and then somehow when you've done that you move into another realm. I mean the thing is, I suppose you're dealing with a model of life and cosmology, you know, that doesn't, for example, take into account Darwinian evolution. So I mean, this is one of my big questions about karma. How does it fit, you know, with the notion of evolution? I certainly don't have a short answer for you on that, but I think it's an interesting question. Can you describe what the difference between animals and the predators? Well I think the animal realm is kind of a fairly crude realm, but it's not all that painful necessarily, it's just a realm of crude appetite, reproduction, you know, eating food and expelling food, et cetera. The Prater realm, in this model, the Praters, I said to have these, or some of them at least, have these really, really big stomachs and these really tiny, tiny mouths and I think everything that they eat, they change to do excrement and everything that you drink changes to liquid fire. So there's this idea that they can never be satisfied, they've got this hunger, they've got this need, they've got this desire, but it can never be satisfied and this is their suffering. And I think maybe you can see analogues, you know, in the human realm of Prater-like beings, you know, beings who somehow, however much they crave, however much they stick in, they're never satisfied. Well doesn't that seem like a difference? Well one of them seems to me just a realm of crude, you know, consuming and another realm is also consuming but with a much more kind of painful angle to it. I mean basically, the Praters is a more painful, unpleasant realm because, I mean an animal when it eats is generally satisfied, yeah, it just eats, it's okay, it reproduces, it's okay, but the Prater can never be satisfied that it's constantly got this craving there. And I think, well, perhaps to think about the difference, if you think about some human analogues, you could think about, well, you get some people who are just very into their crude appetites, they like eating, you know, they like kind of, I don't know, all sorts of sports maybe, I don't know, they're just very physically oriented and when they eat, they're satisfied that you get other people, you know, whatever they do, they're just left with this sort of, this hunger, this thirst, this desire, however much they've got, it's never enough, they're never satisfied by it. So I think, you know, I think there is a difference there. Has that got somewhere, yeah? It's traditionally taken completely literally, yeah, but whether we can take it literally ourselves or whether we're willing to is a different question. On the whole, I probably don't myself take it literally, basically because it seems to raise too many conceptual problems for me, but traditionally it would be taken literally, yeah? Who's in it? There are lots of gods, there's lots of them. It's inhabited by people who've perhaps lived positive lives, but without perhaps any necessarily particular spiritual practice or aspiration and sort of in more psychological terms it might be seen as people, or nice people really, nice people, people who are perhaps just naturally quite ethical, naturally perhaps quite generous and friendly and kind, but they're not striving to fully overcome and transcend all their unschoolful motivations. There are actually, as well, some god realms where there are spiritual practitioners as well. According to Buddhism, there are some particular realms where there are beings practicing the Dharma, practicing Buddhism and moving on to gain enlightenment. And this led to kind of a later idea called the Pure Land where these beings would be reborn and gain full enlightenment. How much, how important is it for the Buddhist to present to you, what can we do? Right, yeah, yeah, I think, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, right, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, right. Well yeah, I mean, I think, well that's two questions there I think, how much do you have to believe? I think that's one of the things. I think I would say that the thing that you do have to believe is that you can change for the better, if you don't believe that then in a way the whole of Buddhism is a complete waste of time. Whether you believe that when you die, you'll be reborn, I don't think it's essential to believe that, but I think it's important to try and take it quite seriously and not just dismiss it. Because I think that we have a tendency to think that the worldview that we inherit is the correct worldview. And if we come across another worldview that conflicts with it, it must therefore be wrong. So we're generally brought up to believe that we're all the product of biology and when our body dies, that will be the end of the story. And maybe that's true, I don't know. But maybe it's not true, maybe after death there will be some form of continued existence. And from a personal point of view, I try to keep an open mind to that, although I have to be quite honest and I'm sort of realising this more and more, how difficult it is for me to think in those terms because of the worldview that I've inherited. But I would say that we've really got to believe that we can change, and as I say change for the better. Whether we believe in enlightenment in the sense of that one day we're going to be completely liberated from all ill will or all ignorance, again I don't think we necessarily need to believe that for the basis of practice. But I think we do need to have some sort of confidence in some of the practices of Buddhism like meditation, like practicing ethical precepts. We have to believe that those are actually going to lead to positive changes. I think you'll get a different answer from different people. I mean you might get someone who'd say you've got to believe all of these things, or you might get somebody else who might say well I don't believe any of it. I'm trying to take a sort of middle ground these days, and trying to take the tradition as seriously as possible, but without necessarily thinking that it's to be taken literally, or you know every detail is correct. That's something of that, yeah I mean obviously that's to some extent flawed because the personal experience depends on one's own degree of spiritual maturity, and in the absence of one's own spiritual experience I guess I have to rely on my own spiritual teachers, and to quite a large extent on the tradition, you know, I do look at the tradition quite deeply and seriously. [BLANK_AUDIO]
