Q&A

Q: I’m not a Buddhist and I’m unfamiliar with the Buddhist teachings, but I have great admiration for what little I have heard about him. Therefore, I apologize if my question seems naive. Could you please tell me what is the Buddha’s main teaching is?

A: The Buddha’s main teaching explains what suffering is, what actions in your own mind cause suffering, and how you can develop the skills you need for attacking the problem of suffering at the cause so that you can put an end to suffering and find the ultimate happiness. There’s a little book in English called Four Noble Truths that will explain these points further. We hope to get it translated into Portuguese soon.

Q: You said the Buddha wanted better things. That’s why he left the palace. But you also you said that “wanting” is the source of our suffering. How can those two ideas coexist? How are they related? Sorry if that’s a silly question, I’m confused about that. Thank you.

A: This is not a silly question. The Buddha didn’t say that all kinds of wanting are causes of suffering. He identified three kinds of craving that are the causes for suffering: craving for sensuality, craving for becoming, and craving to destroy whatever state of becoming you have. Those three come under the second noble truth. However, there is also the desire to do and think and say what is skillful and to abandon what is unskillful, for the sake of putting an end to suffering. That desire is part of the path, the fourth noble truth.

Now, there will be some stress in following through with those skillful desires, but if you truly follow through with them, you’ll get to a point where you have no need for desire. The image the Buddha gives is of taking a raft across a river. You’re standing on the side of the river that’s dangerous. There’s safety on the other side, but there’s no bridge over the river, and no nibbāna yacht to come over and take you across. You have to make a raft out of the branches and twigs on this side of the river: skillful versions of the things you ordinarily desire and cling to. Then you hold on to the raft as you paddle with your arms and legs to cross the river. The effort to paddle with your arms and legs stands for your right efforts to abandon unskillful qualities and develop skillful ones. Those efforts require that you motivate yourself with skillful desires. When you get to the other side, you can stop paddling and let the raft go.

Q: Can consequences of our actions be avoided? Can old karma be avoided?

A: You cannot erase old karma, but you can develop a state of mind such that, when old bad karma that sprouts in the present moment, this state of mind atwill weaken the results so that you don’t have to suffer from them. That’ll be the topic for tonight’s talk.

Q: Taan Ajaan, is it right to affirm that everything that we experience in this world is a manifestation of karma? Is everything karma?

A: All the pleasures and pains you experience from the six senses are a manifestation of karma. In other words, I don’t think the sky is blue because of your karma, but if you find blue really oppressive, that’s a result of your past karma.

Q: During the talks, the memory of three people who intentionally acted together to harm me has been repeatedly returning to my mind. I consider them my friends. Is it my wish that the universe bring justice upon them? Is this wish of mine good or bad karma? That’s one question.

The second question: I feel that justice through cause and effect should happen, but when I think like that, I also feel a loss of energy and focus, like a drain of energy. How can I let this go if the desire for justice still remains in me?

A: Justice is a hard thing to define, because you don’t know what you did to those people in your previous lifetimes. To arrive at a just solution to a problem, you’d have to know when the problem began, who started the problem, and who responded in an unjust way. But with saṁsāra, you don’t know when the story began. So it’s best to just say, “Whatever happened in the past, I’m just going to drop the whole affair. It’s useless to try to settle the score, because no one knows when the score-keeping began.” It’s a bad, mud-slinging game, so get out of the game entirely.

When I was teaching in France, we had the chant for the sublime attitudes: “May all beings be happy. May all beings be free from suffering.” But for equanimity, instead of saying, “All beings are heir to their actions,” their chanting book said, “May all beings be heir to their actions.” It sounds like a curse.

Q: Dear Bhante, do I have karmic debt toward someone to whom I did some harm, but they have done a lot more harm to me?

A: Here again, you don’t know what you did to them in previous lifetimes. There’s no scorecard. So again, just leave the issue. There are many better ways that you can spend your time. Try to act in a skillful way toward that person from now on. If the person refuses to be skillful in response, allow the relationship to grow distant.

Q: Could you explain how bad the karma is from having someone lie or steal for you?

A: Very bad karma. It’s already bad enough when you break the precepts yourself, but it’s worse to get other people to break them for you. They then have to suffer the results coming from what they did.

Q: How can the path of skillful thoughts, words, and actions be taught to a child? How can karma be taught?

A: The first thing to teach a child is gratitude. The second thing is generosity. Both of these qualities are meaningful because we have the power of choice in our actions. Generosity is meaningful because you have the freedom to choose to give something away. Gratitude for the help of others is meaningful because they had the freedom to choose to give or not to give that help. So when you teach these values, you’re beginning to teach the principle of karma without having to mention it.

Then the most important precept to teach the child is the precept against lying. When the Buddha was teaching his own son, that was the first issue he brought up: how important it is not to lie.

Then he taught karma in this way, saying: “Before you do anything, ask yourself: ‘What do I think the results of the action I plan to do will be?’ If you think that the action will harm yourself or anyone else, don’t do it. If you don’t think there will be any harm, go ahead and do it.

“While you’re doing it, if you see that any harm is coming up, you stop. If you don’t see any harm, continue with the action.

“When you’re done, look at the long-term results. If you see that you did cause harm, even though you didn’t intend to, make up your mind not to repeat that mistake, and talk it over with someone you trust to see how you can avoid repeating that mistake. If you see that your action didn’t cause any harm, then take joy in the fact that you’re training yourself well, and continue training.”

That’s the proper way to introduce karma.

The Buddha taught this to his son when his son was seven years old. There are a lot of adults who could use this lesson, too.

Q: If karma refers to an intentional action, what would be a non-intentional action? Could you give an example?

A: An example would be walking down the sidewalk at night and stepping on a snail without knowing the snail was there. The fact that you killed the snail was not intentional.

Q: For an intention to produce good results, it needs to be free from greed, aversion, and delusion. Could you say a little more about aversion and delusion?

A: Aversion is when you act on anger; delusion is when you think that something will be skillful when it’s actually going to be harmful.

Q: Dear Taan Ajaan, in the readings we received, there’s a passage that mentions a trivial evil action. Could you explain this more clearly and give some more everyday examples?

A: A trivial evil action would be seeing a snail on the sidewalk and intentionally stepping on it. That’s much less evil than killing a person.

Q: Taan Ajaan, is it true that you experience the results of karma quicker, the further you get on the path? If so, why is this? Have you somehow gradually been ending karma through applying the path?

A: There’s no way of measuring that. I have known cases, though, where people are meditating in Thailand and they have visions of what they call karma debt collectors: in other words, people you wronged in a previous lifetime. They’re following you around, hoping to see that you’ll suffer for something you did to them. If you’re not practicing, sometimes they’ll leave you alone, thinking they can collect their debts anytime. But if you’re practicing, they may be afraid you’ll get away, in which case they may be in a rush to collect their debts.

There was a woman who came to our monastery in Thailand to meditate with Ajaan Fuang. A friend of hers, who had invited her there, told Ajaan Fuang that this woman had a problem: Every time she meditated, she would start shaking very violently. When she started meditating in Ajaan Fuang’s presence, sure enough, she started shaking. Ajaan Fuang had a student who was psychic and he said to her, “Check her out. See what’s happening.”

To shorten the story: The student saw two beings standing behind the woman, shaking her. So she asked them, “Why are you doing this?” They said that in a previous lifetime she had been their child and she had killed them. They didn’t want to see her get away. So the student asked them, “What kind of merit could she do and dedicate to you so that you would stop?” They said, “Build a Buddha image.”

We happened to be building a Buddha image at the monastery at the time, but as Ajaan Fuang told the student, “We can’t tell her. Otherwise, it’d be as if we’re using our powers to gain money.” Two years later, though, another one of the woman’s friends invited her to help build a Buddha image at another monastery, and the shaking stopped.

It’s for this reason that when Thai people are meditating or doing any kind of good deed, they say “If I have any karmic debt collectors, I dedicate this to them. May they rejoice in this merit.”

Q: You state in one of your books that generosity, virtue, and meditation lead to happiness in this life and potentially in future lifetimes as well. In what way does meditation lead to happiness in this lifetime?

A: By creating a sense of well-being inside. Simply through focusing on your breath and allowing your mind to settle down steadily with a comfortable sense of the breath, you have a source of happiness and well-being inside that doesn’t need to depend on anything outside. If your happiness depends totally on things outside, it’s not safe. But if it can depend on your own internal skills, then you can be happy wherever you go.

Q: In yesterday’s Q&A, you talked about becoming, and since then I cannot stop noticing it: every minute of every hour, one virtual world after another. It’s overwhelming and I’m feeling discouraged. What would be your advice?

A: Don’t be discouraged. You’ve been doing this for a very long time. Now, at least, you have an understanding of what you’re doing. One of the things we do as we’re meditating is creating a better becoming inside, so that when useless becomings appear to the mind, you have a better place to go. In other words, meditate more.

Q: Dear Taan Ajaan, can past karma determine where we will be reborn? Can the karma of people within the same family be intertwined in the same way?

A: When you die, certain possibilities will appear to your mind, and a lot of those possibilities will depend on your past karma. If you’re mindful at the moment of death, you can choose a good possibility. This is why we advise people to try to be as alert as possible when they’re dying.

Now, the fact that someone has been in your family this time around doesn’t necessarily mean that you will both be in the same family the next time around. But if you have karma intertwined, you probably will meet up somehow. One time Ajaan Fuang made the comment that I was a person from Chiang Mai, Thailand, and I lost my way and was born in America. But even then, I’ve come to meet you all here in Brazil.

Q: So why is it sometimes easier to succeed in relationships outside of our family circle than in our own family? Is it their karma or my karma?

A: Both.

Q: But why is it easier to succeed outside the family circle sometimes?

A: This can happen when you have bad karma with the people in your family and good karma with people outside. Just because you’re born in the same family doesn’t mean you have good karma with one another. This is one of the reasons why you have to think twice before you want to have a child. You don’t know what kind of monster is going to rear its head out of your gene pool.

Q: Do you bring your tendencies in how you fabricate—for example, bodily, verbal, mental fabrication—to the next lifetime? Perhaps to some extent, but a lot of this is already forgotten?

A: Even though you don’t remember your old habits, they still are habits. This is why some children are very talented as musicians soon after they’re born. They carry the habits over even though they don’t remember them.

Q: So given that you cannot change your old karma, and we cannot change certain circumstances in our lives, the circumstances could make it more difficult for us to practice so as to enter the stream in this lifetime. How can we talk to ourselves if we arrive at death before achieving this and advancing further on the path? What should we do? What should we say to ourselves to make it more likely that we’ll be reborn someplace where we can continue to practice?

A: One thing, in this lifetime, practice as much as you can and then, based on the power of that practice, as you approach death, just tell yourself, “May I be born where I can hear the True Dhamma and practice it.” Then hold on to that determination. The Buddha said that the vows of virtuous people have a greater chance of coming true than the vows of people who are not virtuous.

Q: Would you please be so kind to repeat what the three fabrications are? What would be the role on the three fabrications on doing walking meditation and how should I keep doing it?

A: The first fabrication is bodily fabrication, which is your in-and-out breathing.

The second is verbal fabrication: how you talk to yourself. The Buddha divides this into two activities: One is directed thought, where you choose a topic to think about and stay focused on; and then evaluation, where you ask questions and make comments on the topic.

The third type of fabrications are mental fabrications: perceptions and feelings. Perceptions are the labels with which you identify things: what they are, what they mean. Feelings are feeling tones of pleasure, pain, neither pleasure nor pain.

When you’re doing walking meditation, one, you’re focusing your thoughts on the breath. Then you’re evaluating how well the breath is flowing. You may have a perception that identifies how the breath comes in, how the breath goes out, how it flows through the body, so that you can create a feeling of well-being as you walk.

That’s how you use the three kinds of fabrication during walking meditation. Then as you go through daily life, you’ll begin to notice that you’re doing these three kinds of fabrication all the time. The question is how to do them skillfully.

Q: I was reading a book saying that we need to understand the pain of our karma. How do we do that? What does it mean exactly to understand the pain?

A: What the Buddha taught was that you have to comprehend suffering, and that means understanding the fact that suffering lies in the act of clinging. You can cling to five things or activities called aggregates: the form of your body, feelings, perceptions, thought-fabrications, and consciousness. These are the things from which we create our sense of self. In fact, our sense of self is one of the main ways in which we cling to these things.

But the Buddha identifies altogether four kinds of clinging. You use the five aggregates—

Now, you may notice, this sounds like becoming. And that’s what it is. We create becoming out of these five activities. When you can actually observe yourself doing that in the act of keeping the mind concentrated, that’s when you comprehend suffering.

Q: During meditation, is it common to feel exhaustion after focusing on the point of pain and feel exhausted after the pain is relieved?

A: When you’re contemplating pain, it does take a lot of energy. So, if you’ve been contemplating pain and you feel exhausted afterwards, try to find a spot in the body that’s comfortable and focus there so that you can charge your batteries by being still and enjoying that sense of comfort.

Q: How does breathing affect emotions, and how is it affected by emotions? What approach should we take toward the breath? How should we breathe?

A: Your emotions and the way you breathe have a huge effect on each other. The skill we’re learning here is to start with the breath. Just tell yourself, “If I’m breathing in a way that aggravates anger, I’ve got to calm my breathing down.” The same with lust or any other unskillful emotion.

Q: I have trouble sleeping and waking up. I feel anguish and a lack of energy when I wake up, and I sleep only when I’m exhausted, usually late. How can I get better?

A: When you lie down to sleep, start thinking thoughts of goodwill for yourself, thoughts of goodwill for everybody around you, and just keep on thinking thoughts of goodwill in all directions. Even if you can’t fall asleep right away, the fact that you’re thinking calming thoughts like this will have a good effect on your body and mind.

To make the goodwill more interesting, you can think of all the different kinds of beings there are in the universe. There’s a chant in Thailand that says, “May all human beings in all directions be happy.” Then it goes through all ten directions: East, West, North, South, Southeast, Northwest, Northeast, Southwest, above, and below. That’s just for human beings. Then you do the same for other types of beings, thinking of all the devas, all the animals, all the hungry ghosts, all the hell beings, etc., in all ten directions in each case. That makes it more interesting and engrossing.

Q: Whenever I meditate later in the day, I end up having terrible nightmares. Early this morning I dreamed of an accident involving many cars that resulted in the deaths of several young people. Is there any way to avoid these nightmares?

A: Again, once you lie down to sleep: thoughts of goodwill for all beings in all directions. Then if you do happen to have a dream like that, when you wake up, extend goodwill to all the beings you saw in the dream, and goodwill for yourself.

Q: How can I maintain mindfulness while meditating lying down? Even when focusing on a part of the body, the mind starts to dream and when it comes back, there’s a sort of a jolt from the dream.

A: When you’re lying down, lie down on your side. If you’re lying on your right side, place your left foot right on top of your right foot and pay a lot of attention to keeping it there. Just that little bit of tension should help keep you awake.