When one learns any part of Buddhism, Karma is always there.
by Khenpo Tashi
Karma is very important to understand Buddhism. Why does one want to learn Buddhism? When one learns any part of Buddhism, one cannot avoid learning Karma. Karma is always present there.
The Purpose of Buddhism
Why? Because Buddhism is there to clean the negative Karma and earn positive Karma. This is the basic purpose why there is Buddhism. It is called observing the Ten Virtues and Ten Non-Virtues.
This is the base, the foundation of Buddhism. If you say you want to learn some high Buddhist meditation practice, but you ignore this base, your efforts on the high meditation practice will not go anywhere.
If a person wants to learn Buddhism, the underlying reason must be, “I want to get happiness and I want to close the door to all kinds of sufferings”. How to get short- and long-term happiness? How to remove short- and long-term sufferings? Within this life and in the next lives?
Through learning the workings of Karma.
Karma and Ethics in Buddhism
Actually, Karma is about both this life and the next life. So, it is about present-life ethics and also the future. The Ten Virtues and Non-Virtues are the most precious ones we can get, if we want to achieve long-term happiness.
See, many of our problems in this life, are due to some carelessness, such as “saying harsh words or hurtful things”, blaming, “speech that cause fightings”, “sexual misconduct”. In other words, we commit the non-virtues.
The Ten Virtues guide us on what to do and what to avoid to achieve long-term happiness. So, Buddhism, through laying out the Ten Virtues, is not just about past and future lives, but also about how to live happily in this life. By observing the Ten Virtues.
A High Form of Discipline
Striving to observe the Ten Virtues is a very high form of discipline, whether for beginners or for old Buddhists.
If we observe the Ten Virtues every moment, we are planting vast numbers of positive seeds and removing vast numbers of negative seeds for ourselves. We are helping ourselves a lot in this life by observing the Ten Virtues. Thus, they are very precious and important.
Past and Future Lives
Normally, when people complain why they have very negative thoughts, which are always coming back, they should be patient. Because this kind of negative mental tendency has been accumulated from many many past lives. Not just within this life. This is the Buddhist view.
So, that way, also, Karma is very connected to past and future lives. If we do not believe that, then, we will doubt, saying, “I did not accumulate a lot of negative Karma in this life, I did a lot of good in this life, but why do I still have so many sufferings?”
The complex workings of cause and effect is not just limited within one life. If we just complain like that, we have not fully understood Karma. The proper thing to know is that Buddha Shakyamuni himself taught that Karma may be planted in one life, and may ripen in 1 million lives afterwards.
In one Sutra, the Jataka, Buddha recounted hundreds of his previous lives. Then, he connected how the negative or positive action that he did in those distant past lives affected a particular instance in some of his more recent lives. So that is cause and effect between different past and future lives.
As Prince Siddhartha, he was able to achieve full Buddhahood in that life due to those great wholesome causes that he sowed in his many past lives. (READ: The Thousand-Spoked Wheel on the Buddha’s feet, The King and the Iron Poles)
A Genuine Buddhist Mind
Cleaning or purifying one’s negative Karma is mentioned many times in the Buddha’s Sutras. (Read: Stories in the Sutras).
We should find time to read more Sutras. Less reading on high meditation practices. More readings on the workings of Karma. If we gain more and more, deeper and deeper trust in the workings of Karma, in our own life, we can say that our mind is becoming a genuine Buddhist mind. (READ: Dzogchen and Other High Teachings)
That kind of mind that has a deeper confidence in Karma will be very, very beneficial for ourselves. It will be beneficial for our basic Buddhist practice and for our future high meditation practices. In the future, that kind of mind will make the high meditation practices work effectively for us.