Karma, action, action has consequence. If you act on your sense, if you act on your sense of independent, if you think you independently exist and you think that person can do stuff, there are consequences for you who thinks you could do that. That's the second point. Results or retribution, either in this life or future life. And the third point is action ripens for their author. The one who thinks she can do something on her own, she gets the result of the action she thinks she did on her own. Those are the three points. So you not only study the action, you study how there's a result and how the result comes back to you. Study these three points. and how, and then also the subtleties, which I hope to get into somewhat, how, what is the process of retribution, and how does it come back to the author? So you study.

[01:01]

You study the self, you watch the self, and watch the impulses, How do the impulses lead to thought karma, verbal karma, and physical karma? What are the retributions for the karma, for the action? And how does it come back? This is the study in simplified form. You have a question? It seems interesting to think that consciousness, that the development of the self, even though it's evolutionarily adaptable, even though it's looked at as normal, healthy development in terms of development, that it's actually kind of a common layer, that it might be in that in early ascendancy there isn't really a self, there's no sense of separateness from the other, so that we have to learn to be socialized in some way as to what to make of our person, and that in some cultures that's done differently than other cultures, so some There's a little less of that power relationship, less of that power landscape being transmitted, and that the self actually develops more in union with nature, more communion with a group identity, more communion with a transcendent system.

[02:21]

Even though it's looked at as a normal thing for the self to develop, that it's... It can be seen as a kind of corruption and actually I think It could be seen as a corruption or it could be seen as the Indian way where Buddhism developed tended to think of it as this is like the locus and the focus of corruption. But the self itself is not exactly a corruption. It's where corruption can start. Because the self is just an image, just an idea. The idea of something independent of other things is just kind of a fantasy. It's like a unicorn. or, you know, a turtle with wings or something. It's just an image, you know, it's just an idea. But it turns out to be... And it was hard for people... Turtles with wings, it turns out that that concept has not been capitalized on yet.

[03:27]

Nobody thought of something really interesting to do with that, but this self thing had tremendous power, and the corruption was that somehow the living system couldn't leave it alone. And then the living system used it to reinforce the idea of self itself. And that caused some disturbance because it started to become taken as real. Maybe the corruption is not the self so much, but some consequence. It then gradually substantialized itself and became became something set in stone against the flow of nature. But even that's not so bad until it started to cause pain, and then again it started to generate actions to cope with the pain of greed, hate and delusion, with the pain that was caused by that, and then cruelty started to develop. So it's more like the locus of the corruption than the corruption itself.

[04:29]

The problem is, again, that the ones who handle it in a more, what do you call it, live in the same planet as the ones who don't handle it in an enlightened way. So we still have to confront the most unenlightened way of handling this material and study it. If you understand what you really are, as long as someone is misusing this thing, you have to understand how to work, how to help them. And if you can't interact with their level of self-power-tripping, that's going to, because of your connection to them, which you understand, you have to liberate them. So you have to understand the powerful way of handling yourself, too. So it may be that the most enlightening way of handling this problem is to help people develop the meditative skill to confront the worst scenario,

[05:35]

and not ahead of schedule. It's not a little island where people are avoiding confronting the delusion, but to develop their abilities to face and understand the study delusion. rather than teach them a less deluded way of seeing things, teach them a skill by looking at the less deluded way of thinking things and the more deluded way of thinking of things. Because if you can study all these different delusions thoroughly, they all turn into light. The radiance of an evil thought is not any dimmer than the radiance of a nice thought. Everything is equally brilliant when you understand how they happen. So it's good to be kind to children and to give them lots of love and to make them feel as confident as possible as they're growing up and to give them a sense of security and all that.

[06:39]

But at the same time, train their abilities so that when they run into difficulty, they'll be able to face it. Don't shelter them to such an extent that they won't be able to cope with certain things when they meet them. And in some ways, protecting beings and nurturing them Prepare them to face certain of the horrors of the world, rather than the other way of being mean to them, then they tend to get numb and then they can never face what's going on. So I think there are different ways of coping with the biological inheritance It's such a mystery about what the way it goes, because as you know, if you ever run into children, especially teenagers, there's such vitality there. It's so radiant and so intense, it's hard to know what is the enlightening, all this energy.

[07:41]

What would be the way to to wake them up to their own process. And every moment they're coming up with a whole new way of relating and expressing this. And you've got to be right there with it because they won't listen to you if you're a little bit off in the tone of voice. So you're also in the process of learning from them how to teach them, in a sense. You're also a student. It's so dynamic that we really have to develop our ability to really be present in the middle of a storm. Studying karma means really studying on sites, in the middle of a very intense construction scene, kind of a cross between a construction scene and a rock and roll concert.

[08:43]

Or maybe even a war, too. That's where karma happens. It happens in really the vital center of our life, is where it's generated. So how do you stay present and awake and alert to this very dynamic, creative situation? And so I feel myself that conveying that to children is really good because we don't know what they're going to be dealing with. And if we try to present them with this or that, that may not be what they are going to deal with later. And we may be making them obsolescent or something in their approach if we give them a special program of education. I think it's nice that in some Rudolf Steiner schools, the kids don't watch TV and stuff like that.

[09:48]

Maybe that's good. They only make things out of certain materials. That may be okay. But then what are they going to do when they run into TV? But sometimes staying away from TV will develop a presence such that when they do run into TV, they'll be able to see what TV is. So if the point of TV is not to necessarily shelter them from dealing with it, but to help them spend time developing a presence so that they can cope with the media when they run into it, then I think it's appropriate. Because you don't have to watch TV, what, ten hours a day for six years to get the idea. You can just watch and maybe, you know, a kid they're really smart so they can watch like one hour a week and sort of like get the idea of what TV is. The rest of the week, the 70 hours which some kids spend watching TV, they could be practicing meditation. But the meditation might not be sitting cross-legged in a zendo, the meditation might be some other situation where they're somehow present with their body and mind.

[10:53]

Could be dance, could be singing. with their parents, where their parents are actually there. It could be a lot of situations where they're actually doing the thrilling thing of being present. And then, if they can do that, then they can go in all these different situations and visit all these different cultures and see what's happening. So the Zen part of studying karma is the kind of presence that we need to, practically speaking, study karma as it happens. Right now, Pim and Ann are writing. But before they wrote, did they feel the impulse to write? And before you write again, are you going to feel it?

[11:59]

You didn't feel it, yeah. So try now for the rest of the day and the rest of your life to see if you can be present moment by moment. And then see if from that presence you can feel the impulse to act. Because before you act, you do have an impulse. And that impulse is called mental karma, which may not lead to physical and verbal karma, but it's there first. See if you can start to step back now, and I'll try it with you, see how much of the time you can be present with your experience and feel the impulses for your actions arise. From the present, actions can arise. From the present, the impulses still arise and you can still act on them verbally and physically express them.

[13:07]

It still can happen, but you may notice a difference. So, for the rest of the day, if you have questions, ...ask the question before you ask the question, and then notice the difference between feeling the impulse and noticing the impulse, and then asking it, maybe from when you ask without feeling the impulse first, even though it was there. Now, you can also get into the impulse to speak, and then just sort of see, would that be a beneficial verbal expression? And usually in a situation like this, when you're studying Dharma, you feel impulse to ask a question. It's usually wholesome. But just check anyway. Because in Dharma studying situations, although the impulse to ask questions about Dharma is very good usually, very good, Dharma studying situations are also situations which are set up

[14:19]

pause to consider your motivation. So both of the questions are usually good, but also the environment is such that it's okay if you consider beforehand. People won't think you're weird if you do that here. Some people think, I can't do this at one time, like Betty said to me one time. I can't do that work. People will think I'm weird if I'm looking at my motivation before I act. You look weird. And they'll say, what's the matter with you, Betty? And they might do it when you're learning how to do it. Like when you're first learning a language, you're awkward. At Tassajara, we do some chants in Japanese, and so some people, when they're learning Japanese, they're reading the word, you know, and like, ne, ne, na, negawakua, negawakua. That's not the way you speak Japanese, but that's the way you have to learn it, negawakua, and then gradually you say, negawakua.

[15:28]

But you have to start with negawakua. So when you first start meditating on your karma, it's kind of like chunky, like action, impulse. Impulse, is that wholesome or unwholesome, you know? Unwholesome. Okay, I guess maybe I won't do it. Won't be helpful. I'll forget it. So it seems a little clunky and awkward. But in a situation like this, that's why sometimes you need a Dharma study group where you can practice checking out what you're up to and for people to give you that space for you to And then gradually, as you get more skillful, you can do it more quickly, more smoothly. But at first, it may be a little clunky. So, like today, if you try, you may find it a little clunky, and or you forget to do it.

[16:33]

If you remember to do it, then, of course, there'll be a lot of moments that'll be different from usual, because usually people do not get their motivation. I guess they don't. But when they start, they have a little trouble remembering, and even when they're remembering, it's a little awkward. But the more you do it, the more it gets. And the Buddha did this. The Shakyamuni Buddha is pretty good, but he had to do this too. So, the first part of Eightfold Path is right view. The right view is karma is important. There's more to right view than that, but I'm just bringing up karma is important. And it's important because we're mentioning karma.

[17:35]

And then karma has result. Check it out. The next thing is right intention. Right intention is harmlessness, loving-kindness and detachment or renunciation. That's right, intention. So when you check your impulses, if they're right, they're harmless, they don't hurt, and they're loving, and they're renunciant. They're going through the world without clinging to things. Those are the types of impulses that are appropriate and beneficial. But you can't necessarily practice those right away because you probably have, to some extent, harmful impulses, impulses of ill-will and impulses of attachment. You probably have them. You probably have them.

[18:36]

Buddha had them, so you probably have them. He studied his intentions, he studied his impulses, he studied his impulses, he studied his intentions, he studied the landscape of his mind, he studied the landscape of his mind, he studied, he studied, he studied, and he saw, oh, there's the Buddha, right? Before he was Buddha, the Buddha looked and he saw, oh, there's an impulse of ill will, there's an impulse of attachment. He saw that in himself. He spent the time looking at himself and saw that kind of thoughts in his own mind. So maybe you have some thoughts like that too, because you're probably just like Buddha before Buddha was enlightened. As a matter of fact, certain teachers say, we're just like Buddha before Buddha was enlightened. Buddha was just like us. before waking up. So it's appropriate, actually, probably, that we would have to look at the same stuff Buddha would look at.

[19:38]

So he looked at these, found these unwholesome impulses. And then he saw how these impulses worked. He saw, oh, impulses of attachment, impulses of ill-will, and impulses of harm, they cause misery to me and others. They caused misery and bondage. He saw that over and over and over again. And then it says in some scriptures, so then he destroyed them. And again, Indians are very negative. And I don't know what the word destroy means, but I don't think you should. Being in America where we have destruction equipment, you know, where our minds are kind of like analogs of nuclear annihilation. I think we should be careful we're destroyed. And rather than destroying these impulses, I think we just let go of them. But you don't let go of them even like throwing them down.

[20:39]

I think what happened or what is happening now, in this world, the way the world is now, is if you study these impulses, and you see the impulses of attachment and clinging, you see the impulses of ill-will, you see the impulses of harmfulness, you see those impulses, you see the results, if you see them, naturally they'll drop. Because as your mind becomes a mind that studies them, as your mind becomes a mind which studies them, as your mind becomes a mind which sees the results and understands how that works, your mind changes. And as your mind changes, they don't happen anymore. ...study, the ill-will intention, the cruelty intention, and the attachment intention, they drop. And in their place, these other intentions of loving-kindness, harmlessness, and detachment come up. The mind is transformed through study and understanding, not by manipulating itself.

[21:40]

And in some ways, trying to manipulate the mind or trying to destroy these unwholesome impulses, in a sense, is an unwholesome impulse. And it's more wholesome in a way to study what you are lovingly. Lovingly study the unwholesome impulse will transform your impulses. So they say sometimes destroy. I don't think destroy is really a good, proper feeling anymore. Maybe in India everybody was so relaxed and so on that destroy was okay. What they meant by destroy was kind of like... But we're so... that I think just lovingly study, actually. Lovingly study your impulses. That's why I would suggest check your impulses out, and if sometimes you do, go ahead and act on impulses that are attachment or harmful.

[22:41]

If you do, then try to stay with with your study and see the results. Even if you can't stop these impulses from arising in your mind and also from being spoken or physically enacted, even if you can't stop them, if you can study them, your mind will be transformed and they will drop away gradually or fast, but they will drop away through that study. This is a practical suggestion for today and forever, that this is practical, basic work of a Buddha, or of a Buddha aspirant, or a Buddha in training. You have to study these impulses, because these impulses are the source of karma, and karma creates the world. The world is created by actions we do based on these impulses. does lead to results which create a world which is not too good, to say the least.

[23:50]

We can't get out in front and stop this thing by more power. One time an army was approaching the Buddhist country. His name was Shakya Muni. He was the sage of the Shakya clan. So the Shakyas were getting invaded and the Shakya people said, Buddha, please stop that army. He understood actually that he could stop it. So he walked out and sat in front of the army. They came up and stopped and went back home. When they got home they said, how can we let the Buddha stop us? That was stupid. Let's go back and get them. So they came back. And the people said, they're coming again. Lord Buddha, please go stop them. He said, this time they won't stop. I'm not going to go sit there. So, you know, sometimes you can stop something. Sometimes you can. Well, if you can't stop it, sometimes you're going to do something mean.

[24:53]

Say, it's no good. Don't do it. And you don't. It's okay. Don't. Sometimes you can't. You can't stop this stuff when you can't, and you can't stop it when you can. But if you can't, you can always study it, potentially. Even when you slip, you can study. And if you study, as you study, you watch, the study is already your mind transformed when you're studying. Then you study, and then you see the results. It's transformed again. So watching the action, seeing the result, seeing how it comes back, those moments of study are already transformation, plus when it's done, it's transformed again. That's the key thing in studying karma, is you have to pay attention to every physical action, the way you move your arms and legs, and so on, how you stand up and sit down, you're mindful of how you use your body, mindful of what you say, but also before you talk, you're mindful of the impulse to talk, you're mindful of the impulse to move, and even when you don't talk and don't speak, I mean don't move, you're aware of those too, even the ones you don't act on.

[26:03]

They all count in different ways, but they all make a world, they're all important, and They're all joyful to study when you study them with the right attitudes. It should be a loving study. You should enjoy this. Being mean to yourself, putting yourself in a prison of studying karma, you won't do this for very long. This should be an enjoyable study. Somehow you should realize you're being like a Buddha, or a baby Buddha, studying karma, practicing right view and practicing right intention. Right speech, right action and right livelihood. So the first four aspects of the Eightfold Path are really about studying karma. It's the ethical foundation for the meditation practice, is this kind of study.

[27:07]

And so it's in its foundation because karma is pretty gross. It's not that subtle, not that difficult to see yourself act. But, you know, it's a major change in your life trying to work up to being constantly aware of your karma. Yes? Could you tell me more about So, you might look to see the impulses and find that they're not so wholesome and then say, well, I'm a pretty bad person for... You mean how your ideal differs from your action?

[28:12]

When you'd like to be a kind person and you're noticing that you have impulse to do unkind things? It has a very different motivation than I thought. Oh yes. Even sometimes an action which is supposed to be kind you notice has maybe some clinging motivation. And then you get upset with yourself for that? Yes. My first response is, remember you're just like Buddha. Buddha was just like you. Buddha had selfish motivation too. Before Buddha understood completely what self was, Buddha had selfish motivation too. So, although it's not that it's good that you're operating, that you're doing something with some selfish motivation, that's not necessarily good, but what's good is that you're aware of it. Being aware of it, you're just like Buddha. Now, to have selfish motivation is like Buddha, but not exactly.

[29:16]

Everybody's got selfish motivation. The part that's like Buddha is selfish motivation and being aware of it. So, if you're aware of your selfish motivation, you're in Buddha training. So it's not pleasant work. Petty, selfish, mean work. We have to be grounded, your practice has to be grounded in the awareness of your limited, selfish, dingy, etc., aspect of your life. If you're not grounded in that, you'll never get out of that. And remember, all the Buddhas did this grounding work. And then, as you do this work and study how this all works, your mind transforms through that study.

[30:17]

Now, sometimes you're doing this work and you get so disgusted with it It's okay to take a little break, you know, and do some, you know, and maybe, maybe try, maybe either, either, either sort of like, like sit down quietly and just meditate on your, on your meditation or just try to relax and get a little calm down, maybe like what we'll call bomb shelter practice. Just like go down under the ground, you know, where it's really quiet, and just take a break from such, in some sense, intense meditation. Meditating on karma is, like I said, it's horrendous in a way sometimes. So maybe you need to put aside meditation on karma. Meditation on karma is insight practice. It's insight practice. And so you can do insight practice, you have to do calming practice first, you calm down.

[31:25]

That's why I say develop this presence, this kind of presence, calm presence in the middle of all this. But sometimes as you start to meditate on your karma, you get so for a little while and then calm down before you start studying again. Buddha did this, but I feel like I'm going to throw up. I can't stand it. Buddha did it, but also Buddha took some meditation breaks. Let's go sit under a tree for a while. Take a nap. Take a walk. And even while you're walking, I'm not going to check my impulses off for a little while. This walk isn't that bad. I'll just walk and enjoy walking and just relax. And then after you feel calm again, start to say, okay, I feel better now. Now check your impulses out. It's a little bit more agitating.

[32:27]

This is taking on more. So you have to balance your, you have to keep adjusting your presence, coming back to just being there and being still in the middle of it all. Do a little insight work. I'm going to, like, start to check my motivation out again. You start doing this, it's a little agitating. You get too agitated, go back to the calming. So, maybe... Meditation break right now, okay? So, why don't we, I'm going to suggest that you watch your motivation now. Okay, ready? Now I'm going to say something, and you're going to do something, I suppose. Right? So please stand up. I felt an impulse to sleep.

[33:43]

And I checked it out. And I said, okay, you can do that during our lunch break. I would suggest that you do some walking meditation around the area. And that you find yourself a nice place to do it in the neighborhood. you feel the impulse to move. And then you watch to see if that impulse to move is pulsing or not. Anyway, check your motivation and do some walking meditation where each step you try to feel the impulse before you move. Practice walking that way of each back and forth in a non-circle, but walk in one direction and then go in another direction so you can feel the impulse at the point of changing directions.

[34:47]

Nice time to feel the impulse. So do that during lunch break. Give some walking meditation in that way. And also during lunch break, if you do decide to talk to someone, practice. You can practice getting the impulse to speak in the process of the conversation. you could also have a conversation about that practice, of course. respond to my instruction, I'd like you to consider whether you want, how you want to respond to it. I'm going to suggest you do something, but you need to decide what to do.

[35:51]

Read this today, and then do whatever you want. Okay, you can take care of it. So I'm going to make a suggestion, and you see what your impulse is, and then you can also consider whether to act on your impulse or not. You know, give you an option that can suggest that you either continue to stand up or sit down.

[36:16]

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