Search results for: past karma

  1. Page 9
  2. The Karma of Self
     … The Buddha makes this clear in one of his discourses, where a monk has been asked, “What is a result of karma?” And he says, “Stress,” the justification being, that all feelings are stressful, karma leads to feelings, therefore karma leads to stress. That, the Buddha said, was not a time to apply that teaching. The relevant teaching was the fact that there are … 
  3. Shaping the Present
     … What’s past is past. And what’s future it’s going to happen on its own. You don’t have to anticipate it. What you have to do is just make sure that the present moment is well-shaped, well-formed. We do play a role in shaping the present moment. We have the raw material coming in from our past karma, but … 
  4. Page search result icon Wise About Mistakes
     … You’re motivated by shame, motivated by compunction, because you realize that even though there is the possibility that, with the complexity of karma, some of your bad actions will have only weak results, you don’t really know for sure because you don’t know what else you’ve got in your karmic past. So you do your best right now. This is … 
  5. In the Elephant’s Footprint
     … At the time, there were some Jains who claimed that when they did their austerities, they were burning away their past karma. The proof of it, of course, was the pain they were feeling. So he went to argue with them, too. He said, “How do you know this is past karma that’s causing the pain? Have you ever noticed that when you … 
  6. Bases of Success
     … The results you want, the happiness you want, will become true, so that you can get beyond this whole problem of aging, illness, death, and all the uncertainties of karma. Someday you’ll realize what the Buddha said about karma really is true—and that the escape from karma is true as well. The freedom is true. But you have to be true in … 
  7. Freedom of Choice
     … If free will meant that you had no influences on your choices at all coming from the past, that would mean that your choices would be meaningless because your present choices wouldn’t influence the future. The Buddha’s image is of a field of seeds. Your past karma is like seeds. If you totally had freedom of choice with no constraints at all … 
  8. Questions of Skill
     … All of its activities come to gather right here, and when they’re gathered, that’s when you can see them clearly and figure out how to get past them. So even though the teachings may cover a wide range of topics, they’re designed to gather you in right here. They keep pointing here. When the Buddha teaches about karma, there are times … 
  9. Breath Teaches the Bramaviharas
     … The teaching on karma doesn’t say that when somebody’s suffering they must deserve it because of something they did in the past. When you see somebody’s present situation, you’re not seeing the sum total of their past actions. There may be potentials in their karma field for something good. So when you see that there’s a pain, or there … 
  10. Taking Responsibility
     … When you’re talking about karma, whose karma are you talking about? You’re talking about your own, so you want to be responsible for it. If your karma was not your choice, then you couldn’t say that karma was a force anywhere at all. It would be somebody else’s force, or something else’s force, acting through you. But here you … 
  11. Three Virtues for the Mind
     … In the case of someone who behaves unskillfully but prospers either now or in the next life, the person may have some good karma as well. But the bad karma will eventually show itself. Similarly with a person who does skillful things, says and thinks skillful things in the present life, but then suffers: That person may have some old bad karma that’s … 
  12. The Big Picture
     … These are the things you use to take the raw material provided by your past karma and turn it into your experience of the present moment. And they’re all right here. The breath is right here; your inner conversation is right here; perceptions and feelings are right here. But the Buddha also talks about these three kinds of fabrication over the long term … 
  13. Book search result icon The Heart a Flowing Stream Everywhere & Always
     … This means that if you recognize a mistake and learn not to repeat it, you can delay its results, which would give you the opening to practice for the sake of awakening and gaining release from the results of past actions entirely. The Buddha’s understanding of karma, along with the steps he recommended in judging your past mistakes, help to avoid two extreme … 
    Show 3 additional results in this book
  14. Goodwill as a Strength
     … No one else can give you bad karma. You’re the only one who can give yourself bad karma. And you do that through a lack of goodwill, a lack of discernment. So goodwill’s something you have to keep in mind all the time. And as for the battles you fight in the world, choose them well. Choose your battles well. But always … 
  15. Ready to Evacuate
     … Even though you may have done unskillful things in the past, you can still figure out how you don’t have to suffer from them. Persistence is sticking with the conviction that you’ve got to act skillfully right now. Regardless of what you’ve done in the past, you can act skillfully now. And you realize the law of karma is not like … 
  16. Selective with the World
     … The windstorms of the past week taught us a good lesson. You can imagine what life would be up here if every building had a big sail. That’s what they had to deal with back in the past when storms came up in the ocean. If you were in a sailboat and you didn’t take your sail down, the sail would no … 
  17. Faith in Goodness
     … When talking about having faith in the principle of karma, or conviction in the principle of karma, it sounds rather dry and theoretical. But if you think of it as faith in goodness, it gives you a better idea of how you should relate to it. We have this power within us to do good and to act on motives that are selfless, not … 
  18. The Battle Within
     … When you win, it’s not like ordinary battles in the world where you just simply create more karma. This is winning and finding a goal that really is worthwhile, a goal that’s not going to change on you, a goal that’s not going to create bad karma. Accept defeat every now and then, but learn from your defeat. If you just … 
  19. What It All Comes From
     … That could delay a lot of good karma for a long time. A bad state of mind can delay some good karma. A good state of mind can delay some bad karma. Which got him to reflect that some things have an immediate impact that have nothing to do with your past actions. That showed him the possibility of freedom. Otherwise, if everything were … 
  20. Hurtful Memories
     … Think about things in terms of karma as well, because karma goes back who-knows-how-many lifetimes: back and forth, back and forth, back and forth, until you have no idea of who started it. And after all those backs and forths, does it really matter? What you need is some goodwill for everybody, and the determination that you’re not going to … 
  21. Noble Priorities
     … Now, there are some things that will come in from your past karma. As the Buddha said, you want to see the eye, ear, nose, tongue, body, and mind as the results of past karma. The things you experience through these senses are the results of past karma. But you don’t just put up with whatever. It’s like going into a kitchen … 
  22. Load next page...