This morning, I want to talk a bit about what we call karma. In Buddhism, karma, as you know, means volitional action. And every volitional action has a result. There's no escaping from the result. We don't always know what the result is, will be, but every action creates a result, which creates an action, which creates a result. And that's the way our human world works. So we're all subject to karma, and we're always creating this karma. There's good karma, bad karma. We say if our direction is based on greed, ill will, and delusion, or folly, or whatever it's called, the karma from that, or the result from that, those karmic actions, results in suffering.

[01:20]

And if our actions are based on generosity, goodwill, and wisdom, then the result of our actions leads to happiness, whatever that is. That's a controversial subject in and of itself. Happiness, the pursuit of happiness is impossible. But happiness is a result. It's not a thing that we can have, that we can get. It's the result of various circumstances. So I'm basing all this on, the reason I'm talking about this is because of the condition of our world at this point. I'm afraid that I have to talk about the state of the world, which is not political.

[02:28]

It's simply things as it is. The world is becoming more and more dangerous all the time. It's always been, but because it's becoming more one piece, so to speak, we can't avoid what we've always avoided, over there. There's no over there anymore, because over there is here, and here is over there. So the results of the karma of the world is producing results that are coming back to show us how delusive the past our predecessors, the problems that our predecessors have caused in the world that are being visited on the seventh generation. As it says in the Bible, I'm not a scholar of the Bible, but it says the sins of the fathers are perpetuated on the offspring to the seventh generation.

[03:44]

But it also says the opposite. Well, that's a good point. Yes, that's a good point. Thank you. So, yes, the point is how one is released from this karma is through forgiveness. Africa was called, the parts of Africa that were created by the European countries for economic reasons, there was the Belgian Congo, there was the French Equatorial Africa, all these countries were named after their

[04:54]

colonizers. And so those countries didn't really exist before as countries. And the Middle East is the same. After the Second World War, the Middle East was created. And the Crusaders in medieval times went to the Middle East to claim their territory. That was a really big one, which is being used as an excuse today. There's a Doonesbury cartoon several years ago where a, I don't know what he was exactly, but he was maybe an observer, And he was driving this Middle Easterner to a little town.

[06:03]

And the Easterner said, no, the driver said, why do you want to go here? And he said, because we want to take revenge on those people who have been dominating, killing us. And he said, well, who exactly was that? And the Middle Easterner said, it was so-and-so. And when was that, the question? Well, when was it? He killed so-and-so in the 15th century. And so we have to take revenge on him today. So revenge is like reaction. There's no end to revenge. We have to take revenge on the crusaders. We have to take revenge on whoever was responsible for some incident that happened 500 years ago.

[07:06]

This is karma. So there's personal karma, and then there's group karma. Strictly speaking, group karma is not karma, but we can extend to group karma because it's an easy way to express the result of actions. If you're walking along the street and a brick falls off the building, hits you on the head, there's a result from that. brick falling, but that's not karma, strictly speaking. Karma is when you are actually doing something either purposely or thoughtlessly, but it's volitionally, thinking or acting. That is a result called karma. And that result, and that sometime, we say sometime in the either immediate or in the little bit later

[08:13]

way in the future, there's a result. So if you hit your thumb with a hammer while you're nailing, that's karma that happens right away. The result is right away. Down the line, you've done something in your youth to somebody, and then they show up later on, and you say, gosh, how'd that happen? I thought they were gone, but they accused you of something. You see that happening all the time. And the karma that happens later on is when something happens, some result happens to you and you can't figure out why it's happening. It can be the result of something that happened so long ago that you can't remember. Sometimes we say in a future lifetime. Whether you believe in future lifetimes or not, there are various ways of thinking about what is the future lifetime.

[09:17]

We live from moment to moment, so each moment is an aspect of our lifetime. And all that's happening right here in our lifespan. This is basically how I think about, and most people think about, or some people think about, the result of how our life unfolds moment by moment. And each moment is, you can divide it any way you want to into lifetimes. my grammar school was a lifetime, junior high was a lifetime, high school was a lifetime, and so on and so forth. And then moment to moment is a lifetime, which means birth and death within that moment. So we're experiencing the result of karma that has been simmering for decades and decades.

[10:20]

and hundreds of years, that's finally coming to the surface and biting the West. There's so many factions in the Middle East that are fighting each other, you can hardly keep track of it. It's really hard to even keep track of. But as you can see, the West is the target because of our karma. And how we deal with that is a real conundrum. We don't know how to deal with it. So, karma is a serious business. Whatever we do, we should be careful. In some religions, they say God will judge you. for your actions.

[11:21]

In Buddhism, we say your karma will judge you. It's not a matter of some being judging you. It's a matter of your own actions. The result of your own actions are your judgment. So that's why we have to be very careful about how we act. And as Raoul said, quite rightly, although our karma, our sins, so to speak, of our evil karma, which we either purposely or inadvertently or through ignorance perpetuate, finds redemption through forgiveness. So for a Buddhist, our Buddhist practice, how we actually find that freedom within our activity is actually what our practice is.

[12:38]

Those who will not forgive are condemned to finally end up suicidal. That's what it comes to. When we don't, when we make a mistake and we have a choice of either being open and apologetic, I don't know if apologetic is right, but recognizing that we made a mistake, we have a choice either to about it or to hold onto it as right when it's really wrong. And the more we defend our wrong actions, the deeper we get stuck in a hole.

[13:42]

We just keep getting stuck more and more, as Hillary is doing. just getting stuck more and more. So, in our practice, zazen is actually a way of coming to terms with karma. We say there's no karma being created. in Satsang, because we keep returning to our emptiness. But how do we find that emptiness within our activity? The Heart Sutra says, form is emptiness, emptiness is form. Form is emptiness means to return to zero.

[14:45]

Emptiness is form means to act out in the world, to arise from emptiness in the world. So arising from emptiness and returning to emptiness is our practice. Emptiness means various things, but it means within for us, it means within our activity of creating karma to actually let go of self-centeredness. So letting go of self-centeredness is a way of I would say atoning for our evil karma or our harmful karma. Atoning means to become one with, at one, because our karma is what separates us from nirvana, so to speak.

[16:08]

Nirvana is the place where we can be free from karma, but it doesn't mean that we're not creating karma. It means to be free from karma within our activity. So that our activity is not based on self-centeredness, which creates karma, but it's based on a wide view of rising above the duality of good and bad and right and wrong, which doesn't mean there isn't good or bad and right and wrong, but we take a wider view, and when we take a wider view, we're much more capable of understanding and avoiding creating suffering for ourself and others. So when anger arises, When greed arises, when folly arises, how do we approach those three so-called poisons?

[17:22]

So we always have to be looking at our actions, continually looking at how we respond to situations and not reacting, because reacting is what creates the conditions for suffering. There's this nice little book called The Tiger's Cave, which we've studied before. And I really like the way Abbot Obora, this Japanese abbot who was back in the 50s, 60s, this book came out. I like it. I feel it's the best commentary on the Heart Sutra, where he talks about how we actually practice Prajnaparamita in our lives. The Heart Sutra is not just an intellectual document, but it's a sutra that helps us to understand how to live our life.

[18:38]

So, you know, it talks about how All of these worlds that are continually coming into being and changing are based on illusion. That we live in this illusory world and we get caught by it. We have to live in the illusory world. That's our fate, our destiny. And the Dharma is how not to be caught by the illusory world. so that we are not creating this karma. So he says, because these worlds stand on illusion, even good is no more than an occasional event caused by associations. And when the associations are bad, the manifestation created by that good entirely disappears.

[19:51]

Relative good and evil are always appearing and disappearing. A sutra says, though merit may be piled as high as the Himalaya, one flash of anger and it is all consumed. So we live in an unstable world where we have a little good, do a lot of bad. But it keeps changing, and also morality keeps changing. And what is good today is bad tomorrow. What is bad today is good tomorrow. Merits from good deeds, when associations become a little unfavorable or destroyed, was a flaring up of passion. I used to think, I remember the Second World War. We went through the Second World War here. I remember the searchlights when I was a little kid. I lived in Long Beach, and we had blackout curtains, and the searchlights were looking for airplanes.

[21:02]

We had sirens. People don't remember how we actually lived in the United States during the Second World War. We had gas rationing, threw little stickers on your windshields. If you just wanted to drive around, you had a C. And if you really had to go somewhere, you had a B sticker, A, B, C. Those people who were important had A's on their windshield. Everything was rationed. Anyway, Merits from good deeds, when associations become a little unfavorable, are destroyed with a flaring up of passion. Our life is destruction of what has been built and building up of what has been destroyed. Underneath building, a destruction, and underneath destruction, building. Repeating again and again the same sort of things. All worlds of illusory attachment are all the same.

[22:06]

We think this is maybe different, but it's always been the same. It's just that all of these activities have been separated, so we never have seen it as a world problem before. This pitiable human state is symbolized by the Buddhist story of Sai-no-kawara, There's a temple in Japan, Sainokawara. He'll explain, in the ruined temple of Daisenji, there is a representation of Sainokawara, of which a good deal remains. So this is, if you've ever been to China or Japan, sometimes in the temples they have layouts of certain stories that are, they have little statues and a whole kind of panorama that explains a story, but especially in China. So there is the dry riverbed of the story, and in the middle stands a great stone figure of the Bodhisattva Jizo,

[23:18]

Around it have been piled up countless little pagodas. The story is familiar to all Japanese, how those who die in early childhood go to this place and employ themselves in building the pagodas. They remember their parents in the world and build one for their father, one for their mother, piling up the stones one by one. A demon suddenly rushes in from the sides and, whirling an iron pole, smashes down everything they have built. The children, terrified, run to the stone Jizo and hide themselves for a while in the long sleeves of his compassion." So Jizo is a compassion, a bodhisattva that is considered a bodhisattva that takes care of children who die in childhood, but also that's only one of Jizo's activities. So we get the feeling of pointlessness.

[24:21]

What is built is destroyed, what is destroyed is built up, and what is built up is destroyed, and that's the cycle, as you can see. One day, we'll have a big earthquake. We get the feeling of pointlessness that it is futile to keep building up the stone towers only to have them smashed down by the demon. If they are always to be destroyed, why build them? But that will not do, for this is Sayi no Kawara, a place where the karma associations find fulfillment. When the demon goes off, the crowds of children come out again and build the pakodas. the Pagoda Towers. Just as they think they have finished, out comes the demon, and all is destroyed. What was built up is broken down, and then what is broken down is rebuilt, repeating again and again the same task is the state of Sayeno Kawara.

[25:22]

It is not our human condition also like this. So in the worlds of relative good and evil, raised up on an illusory attachment to self, we may do some good, but then when the karma associations are unfavorable, evil passions arise and destroy it all. We rebuild what was destroyed, and what we build is again destroyed. When we think we have completed something, it disappears, and what has disappeared again comes about, so the endless wheel of life revolves. This is the character of the human condition, and in spiritual training it is called the law of circularity. What a thing to happen to such a splendid person, you say. This is all the shiftings of human nature. From the point of view of spirituality, it is only going around and around in the world of relative good and evil. It is not the profound spirituality.

[26:24]

All the worlds of illusory sticking to self are worlds of birth and death. So the world of birth and death means that things arise and they disappear, and they arise and they disappear, and there's the endless circle. And how do you get off the merry-go-round? Yeah, yes. By not getting attached to the merry-go-round while you're on it, you're back on it the minute you're off it. but we can't really get off of it. So this is, you know, there are three aspects of Buddhadharma. One is the three cards, actually, of the Lotus Sutra. So the Hinayana is not to get involved and just separate yourself from the world completely so that you don't create any karma. That's where you divide nirvana from samsara.

[27:29]

The Pachaika Buddha path is to have realization, but it's just for yourself. You're not dedicated to helping people. So there's no, it's like, it's kind of dead. And then the third one is the Bodhisattva way, which is, you stay within on the merry-go-round and find your release within the karma. You can't really get rid of the karma. Even Buddha apparently had karma, which he couldn't get rid of. So everybody has karma, and so if we try to It's like if you're trying to get rid of your ego, you can't get rid of your ego. If you dedicate your ego to helping others, so to speak, then that's getting rid of ego.

[28:43]

You're using, it's like stealing the thief's horse. because the ego is the thief. So you're forgetting yourself in order to offer yourself to others. That's the forgiveness. Within that offering is the forgiveness. Would you say that in giving ourselves we're avowing unknown actions that we need to correct or to avow at least? I like to think of it as we enter the temple and offer the ego as a gift. That's our burnt offering. Instead of animals, instead of offering animals and cutting their throats, we offer our ego to Buddha.

[29:49]

And that's how we find release within. the world of suffering. So we suffer with the world, but by offering ourself, it relieves our suffering. Because if we don't feel the suffering of others, then we're isolating ourself. And it's not the oneness of duality. We're still, if we don't do that, we can't find our true release. So, ego, we can't live in the world without ego. But the ego is not holding us. It's not holding us back. It's ego without attachment. is true ego. There's a false ego and a true ego.

[30:52]

False ego is that which is built up to create a persona. True ego is our actual self that is not self-centered. So offering our ego means stepping off the wheel of greed, ill will, and delusion, and as the basis of our activity, the basis of our activity changes from generosity, love, and wisdom. And then ego is put to good use instead of creating a problem. So we want to put our ego to good use. Instead of it creating the problem, it actually creates generosity, love, and

[32:03]

wisdom, which is working for the benefit of reality instead of the benefit of delusion. So does that mean it's okay and it's as good as it can get to be very generous and loving and be really proud of yourself for those things? No, pride is ego. Right. So if you can turn it to be doing good things, you're proud of yourself for being a great bodhisattva. No, that's rationalization. That's rationalizing. It's called sophistry. It's called sophistry. Oh, that's... Yeah, you make something sound like it's really a good idea, but it's actually not. It's a serious question, because that's naturally going to happen.

[33:08]

Yes, that's different. And so, as Sue said, that ruins it. So, how do you handle that naturally, things going to naturally arise? That's called practice. That question. Can you tell me more about how? You know, that's your koan. But take it seriously. Yeah, I think so. I think you do. You do take it seriously. I do notice that. I notice everything you do. No, not everything.

[33:50]

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