Whether we believe in karma or not, all living beings—human and non-human—suffer. No matter how much we try to gain comfort, there is no satisfaction, and the limited comfort we gain always finishes quickly. There is no definite peace and no control over the sufferings of death and rebirth. All these reveal clearly that no living being is free of karma and that karma exists in fact.
All our experiences of happiness and suffering depend on karma. No matter how much we desire happiness, if we follow ignorance alone, without respecting karma, we’ll have nothing but suffering to experience. We can clearly see how intensely some people strive for life’s comforts; they continually suffer one problem after another, while others always experience comfort and happiness with hardly any effort.
Since we create the karma, and since observing karma means to correct each tiny action, then how should it be observed? Avoiding nonvirtuous actions and practicing virtuous ones is observing karma, and to do so, we must be able to distinguish between them.
The actions we create have their negative impulses, harming ourselves and other living beings, and are nonvirtuous. The actions made by positive impulses, benefiting ourselves and other living beings, are virtuous. Nonvirtuous actions only bring suffering results, causing rebirth in the lower realms or even suffering in the upper realms. Virtuous actions only bring happy results, such as birth in the upper realms and all other happiness.
The worst hindrance to creating virtuous actions is attachment to the comfort of this life alone. We should always be conscious of our actions of body, speech, and mind, checking up continuously, avoiding the slightest negative action, and trying to create even the tiniest virtuous action.
Avoid drawing false conclusions based on incomplete understanding and faulty logic. People lead a wealthy lifestyle, we might think that there is no correlation between happiness and virtuous actions or between suffering and nonvirtuous actions. However, we are very foolish to deny these fundamental truths just because we don’t have that personal knowledge. It has, in fact, been the experience of a great many ordinary beings, let alone the enlightened beings who fully see the three times—past, present, and future—and who have shown us the path to discover all this.
The most essential one, the one that leads us to all the enlightenment, is karma. Observing karma is our most vital practice. In the same way, even though patients take medicine regularly, they still remain on an unhealthy diet and a poor lifestyle, and sickness comes. He will get sick again if we don’t observe our karma and stop creating harmful actions; we will have to experience suffering in the future.
Just as patients following the regimen prescribed by their doctor, then get better, even if they only take a few doses of the medicine. Based on observing karma, even a little meditation on the graduated path works. Because karma is expandable, the impression left on the mindstream can ripen into a very positive result. Based on observing karma, all the realizations on the path come.
It is not easy to know every single action that is right or wrong. For that, we need wisdom and a deep understanding of the mind, seeing clearly its function, recognizing the different negative thoughts. Without thoroughness, we can go through an entire day thinking we haven’t done anything negative. Without the wisdom, it is difficult to distinguish between positive and negative actions. We can think we are perfect and not realize we are, in fact, ignorant.
Because we are not feeling angry at that moment, we might think we have no anger. Just because anger isn’t manifesting at that precise moment doesn’t mean the seeds of anger aren’t there, that we are free from anger. Similarly, with attachment, just because we aren’t feeling attached to someone at this moment doesn’t mean we are free from it.
We can easily understand this when something happens and anger arises. We may not always feel angry, but the potential to feel that way is always there. As to attachment, it is just a matter of becoming visible at different times. Only when we are completely released from ignorance—the cause of anger and attachment—can we say we are free from anger and attachment. That is why it is so important to always check whether we are under the control of the thought of the eight worldly dharmas and whether we have created any of the ten nonvirtuous actions.
We need to be able to identify these negative minds to deal with them, which is why understanding subjects such as karma is vital. Unless we can see the actual action, it is so difficult to judge whether that action is harmful or not. The action itself is not an indication of whether it is positive or negative; it is the mind that motivates and creates the action that determines this.
Even action shows vividness; if it is done for the wrong reason, it is a negative one. Conversely, even though an action conveys a negative demeanor, if the motivation is positive, it results in positivity. Only by positive motivation will we be able to know the difference.
Any knowledge not based on analyzing the nature of the mind and its experiences is so limited in this way. No course at university can give us anything of any worth compared to understanding karma. Therefore, we need to read more about karma—there are many books in English now on the subject—and explore it as much as possible. That is where our real life, at the most profound level, is explained.
Understanding cause and effect on a superficial level is not that difficult. We can easily see with our own eyes the external cause of something. However, a deeper understanding and seeing the core, internal cause is much more difficult. Our neighbor has a beautiful garden. It’s easy to see that they have it because they are rich, but we need to see deeper than that. Why are they rich? What are all the causes and conditions? And the flowers in their garden are so thick and plentiful, whereas our garden is full of weeds and nothing seems to grow, even though we seem to put as much work into it. Why is this?
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