Search results for: past karma

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  2. Possessed by Emotions
     … For instance, he insisted that when the Buddha was talking about bodily, verbal, and mental fabrication in the context of dependent co-arising, it was simply a matter of past karma playing out in the next lifetime. Whereas when the Buddha talked about them in the context of meditation, they were the breath, the directed thought and evaluation, perceptions and feelings. The author said … 
  3. Book search result icon Fistful of Sand & The Light of Discernment Karma
     … I’m going to explain karma in line with the principles of the Buddha’s Awakening. When the Buddha explained karma, he did so in line with one of the knowledges he attained on the night of his Awakening: recollection of past lives. In becoming the Buddha, it wasn’t the case that he had been born only once and had practiced only one … 
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  4. Your Hair Is on Fire
     … They’re pretty much the result of past karma, which means they could come at any time. So look at them as that: as past karma. Remind yourself that in terms of your present karma, you have the choice to run with them or not. When you can pull out of them like this, then if your concentration is strong enough, you can analyze … 
  5. Protected by Goodness
     … Of course, it can’t protect them from all the dangers of their own past karma. But at the very least it means that our present karma poses no danger to them. So when we repeat that phrase, we want to think about its implications. What does it mean? How does it mean that we’re going to have to act? How are we … 
  6. The Range of Our Responsibility
     … So you learn how to accept it as really strong past karma. And your willingness to learn that lesson: That’s present karma. That’s something that’s up to you. So the whole meditation is an extended lesson in that one question: What are you responsible for and what are you not? As you learn these lessons in the meditation, you can apply … 
  7. Directing Yourself Rightly
     … There’s a set in the Mangala Sutta, the sutta of blessings and protections, saying that if you’ve had good karma in the past and if you’re born in an appropriate place to practice and you direct yourself rightly, then that’s one of the highest blessings. Now those first two are things that have already been determined. Your past karma: You … 
  8. One Thing Only
     … Those pleasures and pains don’t come marked with a country of origin, i.e., past karma or present karma. A large part of the meditation is learning how to sort that out: which things are coming from past intentions and which things are coming from present intentions. And what are your present intentions right now? This throws all the responsibility on you. The … 
  9. Karma Fields
     … So you have to prepare yourself so that, whatever happens, you’re not going to suffer from your past karma. So when we see somebody else suffering, we don’t say, “Well they deserve it.” You just tell yourself, “That could happen to me, too. And if I were in a position like that, how would I like people to behave toward me?” You … 
  10. Your Own Karma
     … In other words, the karma you’ve done in the past is coming back at you. It’s a sobering thought to think: Your past actions were done with the desire for happiness, and now you’re experiencing the skillfulness or lack of skillfulness in your past actions, in your past desires for happiness, your past efforts to bring about happiness. When you have … 
  11. The Lessons of Equanimity
     … The teaching on karma is that you can’t go back and change the past. As for the results that come from the past, you have to learn how to accept the fact that they’re going to happen. But the Buddha doesn’t leave you defenseless. The other direction of that teaching on karma is you have within you the ability to develop … 
  12. You’ve Got Friends
     … Part of it’s because of old karma, part of it’s because of new karma. Karma tends to be regarded as a very unfriendly teaching, but it can actually be your ally. Remember to begin with the thought right here in the present moment, as you’re seeing things coming from the past, that you have the choice in how you’re going … 
  13. Right Learning
     … You’re not a slave to past experiences. Often we think of the teaching on karma as something deterministic or fatalistic. “I’ve got to suffer because of my past karma,” or, “This had to happen because of past karma.” That puts your whole life out of your control. But when you start playing with the breath, you begin to realize that a lot … 
  14. The Limits of Old Kamma
     … This is why the Buddha rejected the idea that everything was determined by a creator, or everything was determined by old karma. Otherwise the practice would be pointless. But it’s not pointless. We do have a measure of freedom here in the present moment. There may be some restrictions that come from past karma, but you can learn to work around them. This … 
  15. Kindness in the Light of Karma
     … There should be an underlying sense that you are competent, but you should also look at your mind from the point of view of karma: Things come into the mind from the past, and they’re going to be skillful and unskillful because you’ve done skillful and unskillful things in the past. Everybody has. But the question is, do you want to keep … 
  16. Faith
     … But when he actually started listening to the Dhamma talks, he began to realize that here he was, poor without much to go by—he had no connections, he didn’t have any extended family—and so he must have had a lot of bad karma in his past lifetimes. So his reaction was, “I’ve got to build a lot of good karma … 
  17. The Blood You’ve Shed
     … Sometimes you do something really bad in this lifetime, but you have a nice lifetime in the next, because you have other good karma from the past as well. There is the general pattern, though, that actions based on unskillful intentions, under the influence of wrong views, showing no respect for the noble ones, lead to suffering. Actions based on skillful intentions, under the … 
  18. The Heightened Mind
     … One of the ways the Buddha says that you gain freedom, or at least respite from your own past bad karma, is by training the mind so that it’s not overcome by pain, not overcome by pleasure. When you’re working with the mind in concentration, you’re getting practice in how not to let the mind be overcome by pleasure. You create … 
  19. Hold a Mirror to Your Mind
     … And a lot of those questions he fielded in that category had to do with karma, which means that the people of his time really didn’t understand what he was saying about karma. They couldn’t even phrase the right questions about it. The concept was there in the culture, but the Buddha’s take on karma was very different from theirs. So … 
  20. The Riddle of Freedom
    The Buddha’s teachings on karma are often presented as a form of determinism—fatalism even: What was done in the past is going to determine what you’re going to experience in the present, and if you do something in the present moment, you have some hope that it will have an effect on the future. But there’s that question: Well, do … 
  21. Karma as an Island
     … When the Buddha teaches karma, that’s what he focuses on—the good that can be done. This is why the reflection on karma is meant to give rise to confidence—that you have it within you that you can do this. If your habits are unskillful, you can change them. They’re not written in stone. Past karma doesn’t control everything. In … 
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