Todayand#8217;s Dharmabyte features a beautiful reading of the opening verses of The Dhammapada, one of the oldest Buddhist texts. and#8220;Essential Expressions of Karmaand#8221; is the opening track of the talk and#8220;Karma and the Consequences of Our Actionsand#8221;, which will be our next full length podcast on Saturday. Given by the lovely Ratnadharini, this talk was given at Tiratanaloka Retreat Centre, 2005 and is part of the series The Four Mind-Turning Reflections.
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Essential Expressions of Karma
[music] Dharma Bites is brought to you by Free Buddhist Audio, the Dharma for real life. Our work is funded entirely by donations from our generous listeners. If you would like to help us keep this free, come and join us at freebuddhistaudio.com/community. Thank you and happy listening. So we come to the third of the mind-turning reflections. So just to recap, we've already heard about and reflected on the precious human birth, which has its emphasis on the opportunity we have in this lifetime to practice the Dharma and all the favorable conditions that have given rise to that possibility. And we've heard in the second reflection, the reflection on impermanence and death, which stimulates a sense of conviction and urgency and purity of practice. And those two talks very much go together, those two reflections very much go together. And now we come to the third and fourth of the mind-turning reflections, which again go together. And you could have the one on karma and rebirth first and the one on, or the one on the thoughts of conditioned existence first. It doesn't really matter, they go together. So I'm going to be talking about karma and rebirth, mainly in fact about karma and karma vipaka. And probably the best-known formulation of the law of karma is the one that we all know from the Tama Pada. I'm just going to remind us of some of those verses from the first chapter in the Dhamma Pada. And this is Fanti's translation. And the Dhamma Pada must be one of the earliest Buddhist texts. It must be pretty close to what the Buddha actually taught. So the Buddha says, experiences are preceded by mind, led by mind, and produced by mind. If one speaks or acts with an impure mind, suffering follows, even as the cartwheel follows the hoof of the ox during the cart. Experiences are preceded by mind, led by mind, and produced by mind. If one speaks or acts with a pure mind, happiness follows like a shadow that never departs. Those who entertain such thoughts as he abused me, he beat me, he conquered me, he robbed me, will not steal their hatred. Those who do not entertain such thoughts as he abused me, he beat me, he conquered me, he robbed me, will steal their hatred. Not by hatred are hatreds ever pacified here in the world. They are pacified by love. This is the eternal law. Others do not realize that we are all heading for death. Those who do realize it will compose their quarrels. The evil doer grieves in both worlds. He grieves here, and he grieves there. He suffers, torments, and torments himself, seeing his own foul deeds. The doer of good rejoices in both worlds. He rejoices here, and he rejoices there. He rejoices and is glad, seeing his own pure deeds. The evil doer burns in both worlds. He burns here, and he burns there. He burns with remorse, thinking he has done evil. And he burns with suffering, having gone after death to an evil state. The doer of good delights in both worlds. He delights here, and he delights there. He delights in this life, thinking he has done good. And he delights after death, having gone to a state of happiness. And I think probably those verses would be enough to reflect on in terms of the law of karma. It's actually all in those verses. They are well worth reflecting on. So the Buddha's enlightenment experience, the most essential formulation of that, is the formulation that we know of as conditions, co-arising or dependent origination. So this is the most essential way of expressing the experience of the Buddha at his enlightenment. So the realization, the actual experience he had that transformed his life and answered the questions that he'd set out with on his noble quest. And one of the simplest ways of expressing that is that all things arise in dependence on conditions. And they cease when those conditions no longer hold. So it sounds very basic, it sounds quite easy, but it's so far reaching and so hard to grasp. And it's an understanding that wasn't in the world, it wasn't in this world until the Buddha saw it and realised it for himself. And that most essential formulation is given shape, is given application in many different ways. It can be applied to everything. And there are many ways in which we're familiar with it. The Four Noble Truths, the Twelve Midanas are some of the most familiar. But it's the same thing when we come to looking at the law of karma. The law of karma is usually expressed as skillful actions lead to happiness or desirable outcomes. Unskillful actions lead to suffering or undesirable outcomes. So it's a particular way of a particular set of actions that we're looking at. We're going to look at what those actions are, so saying that some particular actions have particular outcomes, other actions have the opposite outcomes. Karma literally means action, although it's got many many associations. And action in this case refers to actions of body, speech and mind. So it's not just overt actions or even just speech, but it's our mental states. In fact it's primarily a matter of our mental states. And the distinction that's being made in the formulation of karma is between skillful or unskillful actions. So I'm sure you and all know this already, but skillful actions are those that are performed on the basis of positive mental states. That is the opposite of unskillful mental states. So unskillful mental states are usually referred to as mental states based in greed, hatred and delusion or ignorance. So anything we do when we're in a mental state that's tinged with craving or anger or hatred or ignorance is going to have a painful outcome. And anything we do that when we're in a positive mental state based on the opposite of those is going to have a good outcome in inverted commas. So that's the law of karma. And one of the first things that needs saying is that it doesn't work the other way around. So it's very very important to make this point quite early on, which is that just because we're having, if we're having a painful experience and experience of suffering, it does not necessarily mean that that's as a result of an unskillful action. We hope you enjoyed the talk. Please come and help us keep this free at freebutestaudio.com/community. And thank you. [music fades out] [music fades out] [music fades out] [BLANK_AUDIO]