June 6, 2025 • 66 mins
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Have you ever wondered why bad things sometimes happen to good people? Or why some experiences seem to repeat across generations? Our exploration of karma goes far deeper than the oversimplified idea of cosmic punishment you might be familiar with.
Karma, simply meaning "action," represents a sophisticated framework for understanding the complex web of cause and effect that shapes our lives. In this second part of our series, we unveil the multidimensional nature of karmic consequences—some visible, some hidden beneath the surface, some immediate, and others unfolding across lifetimes or even affecting future generations.
We delve into the crucial distinctions between individual and collective karma, illustrating how we're all passengers on the same boat yet experiencing different accommodations. When disaster strikes, the wave affects everyone regardless of status, yet our individual karma determines how we uniquely experience that collective event. This understanding liberates us from unnecessary judgment and prejudice while opening doors to compassion.
Perhaps most transformative is our exploration of changeable versus unchangeable karma. While some conditions remain immovable—like chronic illness or imprisonment—we always retain freedom in our perception and response. Just as a man imprisoned on a tiny stool survived by taking mental journeys, we can transcend even the most challenging circumstances through spiritual awakening.
Throughout our conversation, we share profound wisdom about navigating life's complexities with greater awareness. When we stop obsessing over tracing each effect back to its original cause and instead wake up to the present moment—the only point where change is possible—we discover a path toward liberation from unnecessary suffering.
Ready to transform your relationship with life's challenges? Listen now and discover how seeing the world through Zen eyes can reveal the invisible threads connecting all existence, bringing peace even amidst life's greatest trials.
Dr. Ruben Lambert can be found at wisdomspring.com
Ven. MyongAhn Sunim can be found at soshimsa.org
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:15):
Regarding the World Through Zen Eyes.
The depth, insights, wisdom,perspective and scope of these
podcasts cannot be overstated.
I feel I grow with each one Ihear.
Each is a treasure.
The topics are explored withhumor, warmth and accessibility.
(00:36):
I highly recommend them.
You'll be glad you tuned in, Isure am.
Speaker 2 (00:43):
Welcome back to yet another episode of the World
Through Zen Eyes podcast.
I am Myung An Sunim here withDr Ruben Lambert and we are
karmically bound to be back hereagain.
To be back here, again withpart two of the karma episode.
(01:05):
In fact, I wonder what ourlisteners think about doing
series.
Speaker 3 (01:16):
That's a good question, but you know there's a
way for us to find out.
Speaker 2 (01:20):
That's right If you are listening, you know what to
do.
Send us fan mail let us know,leave some comments.
Leave some comments, leave sometopics.
I mean, there is so muchinformation and this is not some
ego trip of trumpeting our kindof greatness, but there is so
(01:43):
much information we do meanderthrough various topics and if
there are things that arefurther to be explored, the
direction from the audience is,of course, a welcome and a nice
thing.
And a nice thing, as weinitially mentioned, it's
(02:10):
difficult to sort of decide byourselves, for ourselves, what
we're gonna talk about, althoughwe'll do it.
Speaker 3 (02:13):
But it's the traditional Zen style right the
student asks a question and theteacher responds that's right.
Yeah, Because in Zen, or in ZenBuddhism actually all Buddhism
we have 84,000 sutras.
It's a very vast universe outthere.
What part of the tree are youasking about, Right what?
(02:33):
Do you want?
To talk about.
What do you want to talk about?
So let us know and we'll giveyou something from the Zen
perspective.
Speaker 2 (02:41):
So karma, We've established op being karma,
simply meaning action, opjangbeing a container, the kind of
storehouse of our karma.
So now that we got that, weknow about the various cause and
(03:05):
effect and seeds and fruitionof karma, so we had
hyon-li-num-kwa.
Speaker 3 (03:08):
The table example.
Speaker 2 (03:09):
The table right hyon-li-num-kwa, hyon-li-num-kwa
.
So.
Action on the table.
Outcome on the table.
Action on the table.
Outcome under the table.
Action under the table.
Outcome under the table.
Action under the table.
Outcome above the table.
So under the table.
Outcome under the table.
Action under the table.
Outcome above the table.
So those were the combinationsand those are the things that we
(03:34):
brought it up, because theseare the kind of contentious
thing.
This is why people sometimesfind the concept of karma
difficult to grasp, because thetheaters are not so visible.
They are visible.
If you know, it's a forget in afight and I punch you, you
punch me, as we said, and that'sobvious, or you know, we're
(03:56):
arguing on above the tablemm-hmm on top of the table, and
when the cause or the effect isnot so obvious, we find it
difficult to kind of be, able totrace that.
Speaker 3 (04:13):
And then I think it leaves people puzzled.
It leaves people thenquestioning the world, their
life philosophy, their conceptof a God versus no God when it
comes from the unknown andpeople are not capable of
tracing things back to theirroots.
It's not so overt like Ipunched you and you punched me
(04:34):
back right.
That's right In your face.
It's blatant and there's animmediate action, reaction.
Then it leaves people withthese kinds of questions like
why do bad things happen to goodpeople?
Why did this person's life getcut short?
Why did this disease manifestsuddenly?
And understanding, I think, thephilosophy of upchang or karma
(05:08):
and cause and effect will bringrelief to your suffering.
But we honed in last time.
What I, or what we don't thinkis helpful or beneficial, is to
apply this logical reasoning andtry to trace back, step by step
, by step by step, to theinitial cause.
It's a long way it's a longways.
It's convoluted.
You don't have the wisdom tosee past certain obstacles and
barriers and limits of yourknowledge, so it's convoluted.
You don't have the wisdom tosee past certain obstacles and
barriers and limits of yourknowledge, so it's you're going
(05:29):
to get trapped and lost andoftentimes people then, in an
unhealthy fashion, take thingson as a personal thing, right?
So there's this guilt-riddenresponse.
Oftentimes that occurs.
So yeah, it is.
Speaker 2 (05:43):
You know you mentioned the, the disease being
brought on, and things.
There is and we do have thatalso in the organization of
karma the causes of ailments anddiseases.
Right, so too, karmically.
You know, cause and affecting,and and and.
(06:05):
Again, I do want to make a sortof disclaimer, if you will.
It's we must be very cautiousthat to one then thinks, oh, I'm
a bad person, that's why, youknow, I have x, y, z, that's,
that's not it.
That is such a grotesque andand and really kind of vile
(06:25):
oversimplification.
A reductionist, yeah, reduceperspective to just, and then we
?
The danger then is not only forourselves, but then also that
could very easily be the fuelfor judgment and prejudice and
racism and sexism and ageism,and you name it it's, brick by
brick, layering the walls ofyour hell.
Speaker 3 (06:48):
And so we, yeah, I'm just saying like, like, this
concept of opchang getssuperimposed on the nature of
reality, and I might meander fora second, but it we're all here
on this earth to learn and wehave all taken on a body.
So, aside from upchang and thisis also partially upchang, but
that framework sits within theidea that there's a body, that
(07:11):
the body is impermanent.
This goes almost to theformidable truth, and the body
is conducive to decay, birth,old age, sickness and death.
Right?
So, regardless of the upchang,this comes to all because we
have entered into a physicalbody made of jisu huapun, earth,
wind, water and father fire,which is now, uh can, it has to
(07:34):
undergo these conditions, right?
So yeah, it is.
Speaker 2 (07:38):
And so, then, what we also have right in terms of the
karmic causalities of sickness.
We might as well go down thatroute, okay, so first of all,
sickness caused karmicallycaused, sort of by action
created in one's past life.
Then we have the sicknesskarmically caused by action
(08:04):
created in this life, and thenwe have sickness by the karma of
ignorance, right?
So, whether this life, pastlife, that's, you know just a
sort of ignorance.
And what we then end up with is,you know, a kind of
understanding of theseconditions as again having
(08:29):
causality, anx, stress andanxiety, right on the physical,
being so.
(08:53):
So many diseases nowadays aremanufactured in a sense, or the
outcome of mental states ofworries, anxieties, etc.
Etc.
The depressive, you know,patterns of thinking, all of
that, and I am by no means kindof excusing or trying to suggest
that mental illness is justsomething.
(09:14):
Think yourself out of it, butthe causality is there.
We get ourselves into trouble,we cause our diseases.
That's the ignorance element.
By not knowing any better, wedo a thing.
(09:34):
So we could think, for example,with addiction, the initial, I
mean mean unless you're born,you know, and your mother, the,
the father, the whole thing, youknow.
But so the usual track foraddiction is that it's a choice
(09:57):
to use that then perpetuatesinto an addictive state, I mean
if you have an addictivepersonality and predispositions
and all of that.
So maybe the first and I knowfrom members of my family, in
fact, the initial using is achoice, choice governed by
(10:23):
ignorance.
Right is a choice, choicegoverned by ignorance.
Speaker 3 (10:32):
You're right that then the initial use becomes now
you have to, you're, now,you're trapped, you've
completely entrapped and snaredby the thralls of addiction and
can come out and I would imagineand venture to say, whatever
that person thought at the onsetor the onboarding or the
initial use of this drug,whatever they fantasize in their
mind at that moment, this isgoing to make me feel better.
(10:55):
This is going to make all myproblems go away.
This is going to make such andsuch thing better the view what?
happened everything?
Yeah, the viewing was a goodidea, but what happened after
some time?
Where the person no longer isin control of their choices?
It's now the drug that that hasoverridden their choices and,
like I've mentioned earlierepisodes, it can override a
(11:16):
person's choices beyond evenwhat the natural instincts of
life, the natural driving forcesof life, are, like having love
and relationships, having yourbasic needs, like food, man, it
will override even those things.
Right, you'll steal fromsomeone that you care about and
you'll neglect your nutritionalneeds just to get your fix.
Uh, that's what I'm saying.
There's this huge discrepancybetween that initial moment
(11:38):
where it was a choice driven byfantasies, that, driven by
fantasies, that kind ofvalidated that choice.
This is a good idea, you know,this is gonna make you your pain
go away, this is gonna makeyour relationship better.
This is gonna make all yourproblems go away, right, and
then whoosh, magically, like Isaid yeah none of that was true,
(12:00):
because now it was true, forfor a time
Speaker 2 (12:04):
whatever one-time, one time use.
This person used one time.
They shut up one time and youfast forward later and
eventually it becomes where theydon't want to be, where they
are.
But now the addictive elementand that cyclical, hellish,
reincarnating karmic thingbecomes yeah, it ended their
(12:30):
life eventually.
Speaker 3 (12:32):
And I was thinking about that, the specific person
who you're referring to.
I don't think that they evenconjured up any idea that their
life would have ended with deathin the initial stage.
Oh yeah, Right.
Speaker 2 (12:46):
Yeah.
So we have that kind of, youknow, there's a causality by
ignorance, and then we have thecausality by karmically kind of
driven, and then we have the onethat's karmically from past
lives you know, and that's sortof we could say it's a little
bit of a longer term.
(13:09):
Having said that, I mean is thisis going to be a lot
collectively, but I really dohope that it's going to dispel
some of the oversimplificationsand and, in fact, if you really
put this together and don'tcatch feelings, as the kids
nowadays say- if you don't catchfeelings about it, then it
(13:33):
really can inform our lives in away that we can unbind from so
much unnecessary suffering inour lives.
So what we haven't yet mentioned, I don't think were the karma
that we call Seungmyung, whichis the karma that we have, karma
(13:55):
that you can change and karmathat you cannot change.
And again, here karma means I'musing it, as we've discussed in
the first part of this, usingit sort of in that loosely
defined term, that is to say, Iam born to the parents I was
(14:17):
born to.
That's unchangeable Parents.
Could you know whatever?
I could disown parents.
Parents could disown youwhatever.
Legally you know all thosethings, but the reality of the
fact is that is unchangeable.
And then we have other kind ofreorganizations and we could do
(14:39):
many things.
So we have also other karmas ofour lives that we cannot change
, cannot change.
We work towards amelioration ofthat suffering and
understanding and getting wiserand tipping the scales.
And then we have karma that ischangeable, this sort of more
(15:03):
lighter type of thing.
And so there are things insideof control and outside of our
control, depending on on theheaviness of the karma.
We have the causality ofvisible and invisible, invisible
cause and visible and and thatwhole combination of those
things which is, you know, wesee this with corruption and we
(15:30):
see this with with public figurebeing, one way, you know, sort
of the typical political theater, right, what you see isn't what
you get, it's not.
And then we have the thingswhere you get something, what
you get is not what you get,it's not, yeah.
And then we have the thingswhere you get something, what
you get is not what you see.
(15:50):
And then we have when you getwhat you see, and then what you
don't you get, you don't see,get what you don't.
Speaker 3 (15:58):
So it really answers everything.
We're done, that's done A lotof seeing and not seeing.
Everything's been answered Overthe table, under the table.
Speaker 2 (16:06):
It's really which would then, you know, if we use
it properly to inform our lives,what we end up doing is simply
understanding, not groaning andmoaning, not bemoaning our
conditions, not.
We simply know, ah, there's acause and effect, and then what
(16:30):
we could do is respond.
We could take time.
We simply know, ah, there's acause and effect, and then what
we could do is respond.
We could take time and energy.
There's a sort of economy inthat, because then we could
spend energy addressing theissue as opposed to spend energy
bemoaning the issue, as opposedto spend energy bemoaning the
issue and worrying about theissue and complaining about the
(16:54):
issue.
Those are energy saps.
They, they drain, you know,life out of people so frequently
metaphorically and literally.
Speaker 3 (17:04):
Metaphorically and literally yes.
Speaker 2 (17:06):
And so if we could now have this understanding of
ah, there are visible causes andinvisible outcomes, and
invisible outcomes and invisiblecauses and all of that, there
are causes within this singlelifetime that are obviously kind
of more traceable, frequently,right, and then there are causes
(17:31):
over multiple lifetimes.
We get the combination of allthose things.
So what we need to have in theface of our life experience is
an aha moment and kind of stateof wakefulness to say, okay,
that's what it is what it is.
It's sort of dharmic in thatsense.
Dharma means you know, that'show it is what it is.
It's sort of dharmic in thatsense.
Dharma means that's how it is atleast one definition, and so
(17:55):
this is how this is.
What am I going to do about it?
Is the question that we have toask ourselves what am I going
to do about it, ask ourselves,what am I going to do about it?
(18:16):
And and then we, we are facedwith a freedom of choice.
Frequently, and if we are thenin a place where I have no
freedom of choice but I havefreedom of perception, a freedom
of perspective.
Right, there was a gentleman ina Chinese prison and he was
(18:43):
given a document to sign to kindkind of recant his you know
position, and he refused, and sothey've thrown him into prison.
Not only was he in prison, buthe was sentenced to from
(19:06):
something to the effect from 6am to from something to the
effect from 6 am until 6 pm,with breaks for bathrooms and
whatever things.
But he was said to have to siton like a six-inch stool, so
nearly squatting.
So I'm comfortable position tobegin with and eventually, by
(19:30):
whatever means, he was releasedor however that unfolded.
He was asked then how he wasable to manage.
And this is where this idea ofpeople who have gone through
living hell, who come out on theother end, who come out on the
(19:55):
other side of this kind ofliving hell, frequently come out
with a perspective that they'veutilized as they were walking
through the hellfire, and it's asort of what I call sacred
gullibility, right, becauseotherwise your entire kind of
(20:16):
soul is consumed and if you domake it out, you hate.
It's a really kind of there's anumber that's done.
And then there are people whogo through this hellfire and
come out and in a sense survived, a kind of phoenix thing rising
(20:39):
from the ashes type of thing.
And you know this gentlemansitting on the stool, he thought
of all the meals, and this isyears, right, so years worth of
you know.
He thought of all the meals andthis is years, right, so years
worth of you know.
So things of trying to rememberthings from the past, from the
childhood, uh, you know,thinking of all the favorite
meals that he would like to eat,and and went all the way into
(21:01):
sort of astronomy and astrology,and and metaphysics and, and,
and you, and quantum theoriesand what else he was thinking
about.
Essentially, what he did is hetook a trip every day in his
mind to travel someplace, andthis is kind of what got him
(21:21):
through.
So the condition in which he wasin, namely that of prison and
that further than torture, ishaving to remain sort of seated
on this tiny stool, that was thecondition, but he used his mind
(21:43):
in a creative way where theconditions were sort of
transcended and it's thattranscendence.
And so when we are faced withconditions in our lives, and
even when it seems that we haveabsolute no choice to do
anything about it, there is adoing, there's a realm of doing
(22:10):
that exists in in the mind, inthe psyche, in the perception
and and the it's.
It's a challenging thing tograsp and and frankly, really
via spiritual, it's calledenlightenment, is the real
realization as, as as one herethis ahead, yeah with the skull
(22:33):
and and all of that.
Speaker 3 (22:34):
And you know we'll relay that story at some point
in time about this idea of mindcreating the world around us I
think that's a very good pointand we were talking about
disease earlier and for thosepeople who have suffered with
chronic illness, this gives thema sense of hope, where the body
(22:58):
is undergoing decay of illnessand will eventually meet its
mortality, like all of us.
But for some, sooner than later, this part is immovable.
This part is a karmicconsequence that they can't do
anything about.
Maybe they've reached thelimits of modern medicine.
(23:20):
And so then the area in whichthey do find relief is in their
mind, in their hearts and intheir souls.
Coming to terms with andaccepting that reality, then
people get a glimpse of peace,eternal peace, amidst this great
(23:41):
tragedy that we all feel forthose people.
But there may be no return backto a state of health for the
body.
This is a reality for manypeople, yes, and if you just
hone in on that one piece and wedon't have this deeper layer
(24:01):
like you're referring to now,just like the man that was in
prison, that was immovable, forfor him he couldn't get out of
that, but there was a part thatwas not exposed to, let's say,
suffering, and that was theinner part of the mind.
This was the realm in whichthere was some empowerment,
there, where he could direct hismind.
(24:21):
And in the same manner, a personwho is working and struggling
through a chronic illness andhas faced their mortality,
struggling through a chronicillness and has faced their
mortality, well, the body may bedying, but the mind certainly
does not have to.
You can still work with aprofessional work, with your
faith, and find a sense ofacceptance which ultimately
(24:42):
leads to this eternal peace, andI think this almost jives with
to bring another things withpart of what you were talking
about at sunday service in themoment of aligning yourself with
pop, aligning yourself with thedharma and versus going against
it and just grinding up againstthis thing that you will never
(25:03):
be able to get rid of or get outof your life, right.
So these are?
Speaker 2 (25:07):
these are hard these are hard topics, pain in
particular.
It's, it's a, it's a big deal,yeah, um.
And then we have where the bodyis healthy in the sense, but
then the mind becomes to go thathappens that kind of?
Thing.
So when you said mind, youmeant something more
transcendent than just theelectrical storm in a brain that
(25:29):
we consider as from certainperspective, as the mind.
Not the chip, Not the chipright.
So, there is a causality andthere's a perspective that we
(25:50):
could have, and this is whatwe're hoping that with this
particular two episode thing, toshed some light on these
elements of life that have afreeing ability, elements of
life that have a freeing ability.
(26:12):
So we have, and last time, inthe last episode, I was saying
how neatly put together theepisode has been, because it is
a systematic kind of approach tolife.
(26:32):
In a sense it's very kind of wedelineate cause and effect as
we've gone back and forth withthese.
Now, what we haven't talkedabout is Jungi in terms of karma
.
So Jungi, buljungi, mujungi arethe time, is in terms of karma.
So are the time element We'vementioned it briefly but also
(26:58):
what we need to consider, right,we've presented as seasons at
some point in time, right?
So not only is the visibility ofcause and its outcome, the
cause and effect being visible,sort of above the table, a
(27:19):
element and cause above thetable, result under the table,
cause under the table, resultabove the table, cause under the
table, result under the table.
So that's one kind of element,one combination.
But then we also have toconsider the time element.
So according to the fruition ofkarma, according to the time.
(27:43):
So jongi means an immediatecause and effect, and this is
the easiest one.
And when we talked about, youknow us sitting, you know across
one another from a table andand you know we have this above
the visible to every participantof the dinner party.
You know you, I do a thing, youdo a thing, everybody sees it,
(28:06):
everybody knows it, and it'staking place in real time.
It's taking place here and now.
So the cause and effect arealmost immediate.
The fun example of this is ifyou're nailing a nail into the
wall, that you're trying to hangsomething, let's say, and you
hit your finger.
You see the nail, you see thefinger, you see the hammer, you
(28:31):
see all of those elements.
You see the hammer land on thefinger and you see the finger.
Everything is known.
Speaker 3 (28:37):
You feel it.
Yeah, it's right there.
Everything's registered.
Every step was registered inyour consciousness.
Speaker 2 (28:43):
Yeah, it's very obvious, it's very visible.
It's very obvious, it's veryvisible, it's very clear.
There's the cause, there's theeffect.
The timeliness of the cause andeffect are immediately, right
now, visible, we don't reallyeven have to think about it.
Now we do have to be cautious,and this is what frequently
happens when we cast judgmentupon others, or when we cast
(29:13):
judgment upon others or when wecast judgment upon ourselves,
Because just because the visiblecause and effect and the time,
etc.
Etc.
We have to also consider thesort of conditions.
And so what we frequently, likewe've mentioned, I believe in
the last episode, if you'vefallen face first into a puddle
(29:39):
of mud and you have a kind ofmoment of oh, I remember I
shoved my best friend when I wasa child into it, and so we
create this correlation that isfrankly just speculation really,
because we pair and match theexpression of it so shoved into
(30:03):
mud and now shoved into mud.
That means they must beconnected and it's much more
complex than that.
So many other elements are atplay, so many interweavings of
cause and effect are at play,that to reduce it like this,
what we end up, and the dangerthere is, the danger of judgment
(30:24):
, of prejudice, right, there's adanger of all the isms, racisms
, this because, oh, that person,that color person, that race
person, that you knownationality person did a thing
to me.
And then we draw thisconclusion well, you know,
they're all like it.
You know, and, and, and itmakes sense, and so we could
(30:44):
draw these dots, we makeconnections and we don't allow
each moment, each new moment, Aprior experience can inform the
new moment.
Speaker 3 (30:52):
but for heaven's sake , give the courtesy and respect
to the idea of newness.
Right and the idea of limitationof one's knowledge, right, but
in a new moment, there's alwaysthe infinite potential for
things to go in differentdirections.
And if it had to do withanother person prior to this
moment doing something from ahuman rights, humanistic
(31:15):
perspective, this is a differentperson, right?
And we're not.
We're blinded by the past andyou're not giving this person
their true uh right to to freelybe who they are and to express
themselves in the manner inwhich they want.
You're now tainting who theyare with your judgments, with
(31:36):
your biases, with your limitedperceptions.
Speaker 2 (31:41):
It's worth remembering these things,
because tools, tools, tools aretools.
How do you use the tools?
Knife isn't bad.
No, a knife is a knife is aknife is a knife as a rose is a
rose is a rose, so what do youdo with?
Do you use it properly?
you could make a fantasticsandwich with your knife
(32:02):
absolutely or your sergeant cansave your life sergeant could
serve your life, or somebodyelse could end somebody's life,
or he could end somebody's life.
And, maim, it's what you dowith the tools.
So we have to be careful.
Now, given this perspective onkarma, we have to always
remember to guard our mind andthe proclivities of our ego
(32:26):
thinking.
The proclivities of our egothinking and the tendencies that
we have to want to molt andalter reality to satisfy our own
imagined way that things work.
And we could very easily thenuse and justify behaviors on
account of our quote-unquoteenlightenment.
(32:51):
It's obviously not enlightenment, but we see this because
otherwise, how is it thatreligious people I mean across
the board, right why?
How is it that religious peopledo some of the things that they
do?
It's in such disalignment andmisalignment of their fates or
the teachings of their fates,etc.
(33:11):
How is it that they do thethings that they do, even though
and then what we get?
The famous one, even thoughthey know better what they know
let's say we have thisinformation they mangle and
mutilate the information tomatch their own agenda.
Really dangerous, really dark,dark alley to go down.
(33:35):
And you end up in a differentkind of hell when you use your
spirituality or your religiousperspectives and points of views
mangled to satisfy your ownagendas and what it?
It's a special, special placein the hell realms for that, the
(33:57):
religious loophole right and,and this is the, the, that's the
thing, it's the idea, oh, youknow it's, it's uh lofty, thinks
one to oneself.
Oh, this is justified byScripture or by this or by that.
It's a mangling, twisting andturning and, like I said, it's a
(34:19):
different kind of hell.
Speaker 3 (34:20):
So much pain and suffering has been at the tip.
Of this is what Scripture callsme to do.
Speaker 2 (34:25):
Yeah, we really have to be cautious.
Speaker 3 (34:31):
That's across the board.
For any yes, and I've said thisso many times, my karma ran
over your dogma type of thing.
Anyone who's engaged in strictdogmatic.
Speaker 2 (34:41):
Fixated.
Speaker 3 (34:42):
Fixated.
But that's religion Rigorous.
Speaker 2 (34:47):
And I've said it time and time again and I say it
again there's no more, biggerand worse type of ego than that
religious one.
The spiritual ego, thereligious ego, is one of the
most dangerous that I canimagine.
Speaker 3 (35:06):
That's why the buildings of many religious
institutions are so damn tall Tofit the egos of all those
people there.
Speaker 2 (35:13):
Big door.
Yeah, so we have the cause andeffect and the time being sort
of immediate, if you will, rightThen.
So that's, then we have meaningthat there is no, the, the
(35:34):
causality, the cause and effect,the fruition of the seed has a
delay, delay, however delay thatexists within a single lifetime
.
Delay, delay, however delaythat exists within a single
lifetime.
You know so, and as we bringthis up and as we kind of
(35:59):
working this out, one must alsoremember that one action, let's
say that the cause and effect,as an example, the cause and
effect is visible to everybody,the time is visible to everybody
(36:20):
, and then that the one cause inthat expression, so the one
cause in that expression, so theknown cause and the visible and
known outcome, the time of itbeing immediately, so what do we
(36:43):
get, is not an end of a chainreaction.
We also have to remember thatwhen we're thinking of karma.
So what we have is one causecreating an outcome and the
circumstances.
The outcome is immediate, butthen the resulting thing is the
(37:04):
seed or the beginning ofpotentially another revolution
of this.
So something done visibly orpublicly, the outcome, seen
visibly and publicly, it'simmediate.
Out of that is born a seed.
That seed then, depending onhow handled, can then become a
(37:25):
seed that now grows into thenext life.
So it's not always like visibleinvisible.
Visible invisible it's notalways, it's not a repetition of
the thing.
They, they, they really arefantastic.
Speaker 3 (37:39):
I mean, it's kind of fascinating and it does not
allow a person to create thisone algorithm that will answer
or explain every person's life.
Every person is a world.
Every person is a uniqueuniverse Onto themselves, right?
Because maybe one person andthis is where you can really get
(38:00):
trapped up and if you'restrictly applying logical
reasoning in these situationswhere it's like, oh, you punch
someone, they punch you back youknow, I learned that is
immediate karma and then you,and then maybe you go and look
at another situation, or you goand do it yourself and you punch
someone and they don't punchyou back and you're like, aha,
(38:21):
they lied to me, right, right,this is this.
Is you just narrowing the wholeworld to one little grain of
sand of the vast oceans filledwith sands that exists out there
?
You could really get trapped upand then lose belief or
understanding and no longerfurther your studies or your
contemplation of theseprinciples.
Speaker 2 (38:44):
Yeah, it is a….
Yeah, it is a.
Please, those of you who arelistening, consider these talks
of ours, these conversations ofours, these points that we're
trying to make, if there are any, as you know.
Tend to them cautiously, andthis is where the pursuit of
(39:04):
wisdom is always paired with,whatever it is, other element.
Always we talk about compassionand when lacking in wisdom it
turns into something.
Compassion could becomeproblematic if it hasn't the
wisdom.
I know we've mentioned thatcompassion is kind of love with
(39:27):
wisdom in a sense.
Speaker 3 (39:29):
But you know Right, because we have those sense
stories, and it almost remindsme of the original Karate Kid
story too, where you have themaster-student relationship and
the master says simply justfollow, you know, go and chop
wood.
And then the student does thatfor a certain amount of time and
then he confronts the master ata later time.
(39:50):
Master, you have told me, youknow, by doing such and such it
would bring this kind of effectI thought I was coming here for
a karate lesson.
You know the same thing withwith boshi right?
You tell someone you know, dowater donation, you need more
water donation so that this suchand such thing can come into
your life.
And someone does it for acertain amount of time and they
(40:10):
don't get the outcome they wish.
And then again there's thatconfrontation, either internally
challenging you know, yourbeliefs, or challenging the
person who told you and sayingyou have lied to me, this isn't
the case.
And I just want to go back,before I pass the baton to you,
to the karate kid moment fromthe original Karate Kid with
Rough Macho, where Mr Miyagi istelling him to send the floor,
(40:30):
send the floor, send the floor.
And paint the fence, wax on,wax off.
And then there's that famousmoment in the movie.
He's like you haven't taught meanything.
And he's like, oh yeah.
And then that's where he saysshow me, send the floor.
And he strikes him and thenhe's able to block every single
punch with that technique.
Speaker 2 (40:48):
That is punking.
We use that in Zen all the time.
I had a gentleman.
I saw another episode, but goahead.
I had a gentleman, years ago,came to meditation class and
happened to be the only onethere and I started doing deep
bowing you know 180 bows, andhe's following along and I
bowing, you know 180 bows, andhe's following along and I hear
him, you know, challenged by itand you know, behind me.
(41:10):
So we finished the thing,finished class.
He stops by the front desk atthe time I didn't even have a
splendor of an office like I donow, my little nook and he says,
you know, kind of upset in thisvoice, I came for meditation
(41:33):
class.
There you go.
I said you don't think that wasmeditation class, do you?
He said no, yeah, he came tosit down.
That's why he didn't come for aclass.
Here in class, you learnsomething he came to.
(41:57):
You know I am here dance monkey, monk, monk E.
Speaker 3 (42:05):
Whatever story I created or picture I made in my
mind, right so.
Speaker 2 (42:10):
so are you here for a lesson?
Are you here to learn?
Are you here for a class or areyou here just you know, for me
to do what you, and then, andthere's same time and place, and
, and, and you know eachindividual person at each
individual step in their journey, et cetera, et cetera.
He became a member of the ZenCenter A few years later, took
(42:33):
precepts, so it became my.
One could speculate thatperhaps if he came for sit-down
meditation and I gave himexactly what he thought he
needed, he would have walked outand never come back.
Speaker 3 (42:55):
Very much, very likely.
Speaker 2 (42:57):
Yeah, it's not as simplistic as we frequently
imagine it to be.
So we have now time fruitionright, immediate delayed, that
(43:17):
is to say delayed from withinonce, one single lifetime.
We know that the cause andeffect, that the effect, the
fruition of that will be inwithin single lifetime.
And then we have, which isunknown, the unknown season of
fruition of the seeds of ourkarma.
(43:39):
And this is interesting becausenow it throws the thing in, it
throws a sort of bit of a wrench.
Perhaps we can see the seed, sowe could.
Now we have the above the tableconfrontation.
Let's say, I've thrown water inyour face and you didn't
(44:05):
respond in kind, and theneverybody thinks all right,
that's, you know, he wasassaulted, he didn't retaliate,
end of story.
And then maybe next lifetime Idrown.
You know it's a drastic it's adrastic kind of thing you know.
(44:29):
But that is to say, you know, wedon't know.
Sometimes we don't know whenthe fruition happens, and so
this makes for a very complexuniverse of going uns, for a
very complex universe ofgoing-ons.
(44:53):
The causes are visible or thecauses are invisible.
The outcomes are invisible orvisible.
The cause and outcomes happenin a single lifetime, they
happen over multiple lifetimes,they happen immediately, et
cetera, et cetera.
Now here's one that sometimestakes people by surprise,
(45:13):
because even if one's cause andeffect aren't seen within that
person's lifetime, it can beseen within three to four
generations of their offsprings,which is a sometimes people are
(45:34):
kind of knocked by that.
Speaker 3 (45:39):
Well, we have some dna evidence right, that's the
thing that is kind of alludingand pointing to those things.
Speaker 2 (45:44):
Absolutely.
You know we've talked aboutthat study that was done that
suggested something to the factthat if your grandfather starved
not starved to death, but had ahard winter, let's say at an
age of whatever 8 to 14, someteenage years, if you had a
(46:12):
rough winter and there wasinsufficient food and things of
that nature, that yourlikelihood of developing
cardiovascular disease issignificantly less.
And so it's kind of a gift fromgrandpa, you know, on account
of his suffering, Right.
So we have to also considerthat it's also not just you do
(46:35):
the kind of suffering we couldsay, because then we have that
good and bad linear thinkingalso.
So grandpa suffered, but, andprobably it's not even a matter
of perspective, I'm sure At thattime he was like man, this
sucks, you know, I'm starving,I'm hungry, I'm cold, I'm
(46:58):
whatever you know rough time.
Absolutely, we're not eventalking about that.
Grandpa had sort of a shift ofperspective and said, oh, you
know what I'm gonna, I'm gonnathink of my grandson and and I'm
gonna suffer this with graceand and you know I will bestow
upon him a less likely you knowlikeliness of of having a a um,
(47:21):
cardiovascular cardiovasculardisease, right, you.
So grandpa suffered andsuffered the suffering,
potentially, but yet as anoutcome of said suffering, is
something that is positive.
So now I think there's only oneelement cherry on top of this
(47:45):
all Saup and Kongop Individualkarma, individual person's karma
and the collective karma.
Ladies and gentlemen, folks, Ithink we have come to the end of
(48:07):
explanations of all things inthe vast universe.
We are so interconnected withone another At times this really
is a tapestry of existence,Because we have and this isn't
(48:30):
necessarily so how to clarifythe collective karma.
I mean individual karma is sortof obvious.
Right, You're walking through adesert and a cow falls on your
head and kills you dead.
In a sense, we could say that'san individual karma.
You were just out there in adesert and it was karmically
(48:53):
yours to be splatted by a cow.
We have that story of thefortune teller, if you recall it
call it was told you know, ah,you're going to die in three
years and stayed home, had hisyou know, essentially food and
and provisions ubered, or youknow to him and and medieval
(49:14):
over medieval right you know,delivered and walks out of his
door three days and, uh, threeyears later and the dad and a
cow falls and kills him, right.
And when I tell that storypeople's like, oh, that's
children's story.
And I say to that you haven'tseen a tornado, have you?
Speaker 3 (49:35):
yeah, you're telling me there's no flying cows?
Speaker 2 (49:37):
yeah, you know, there's no when, when fishes
rain right in the united statesthere's so many, so many, a lot
of stories, episodes, right whenthe fish rain falling from the
sky because of a volcano I meana tornado slurped up a lake and
fish and frog are falling.
You know the end of times.
(49:58):
If you're biblically inclined,you know that's it.
You go and you know prepare forrapture because you got the
rain of salmon going on.
You know prepare for rapturebecause you got the rain of
salmon going on.
You know, and so that's thekind of, we could say,
individual.
Speaker 3 (50:15):
You're walking through this and a splat goes
the cow and your pancake.
Well, I think for a corn up.
There are many examples Peoplethat were in the Twin Towers for
9-11.
People that have been in warstogether, People who have been
in the same car and there's anaccident of some sort, or just
simply the term that we alwayssay you're on the same boat,
right If you're on the samecruise ship and a giant wave
(50:35):
comes.
Does the person in the smallestroom feel it and the person
who's in the biggest suite notfeel that wave?
Right they all equally feel theimpact of that wave because
they're all literally on thesame boat, that's that's a
fantastic way of putting it,because your your individual
karma, that the element of theindividual karma is the size of
(50:58):
europe.
Speaker 2 (50:58):
You got the third class shabby accommodations, and
then there's a somebody else ina penthouse with you know fancy
champagne bottles, and so thatthere's the individual karma
element and there's thecollective karma that it's one
boat, yeah, and titanic down itgoes there it is.
Speaker 3 (51:15):
I mean, one can be drinking their wine in a wooden
cup and the other one in a goldcup, but when the wave comes,
they both spill that's right,and again.
Speaker 2 (51:25):
And so then the other way, right, you could have your
collective karma.
Is the wine, right?
They're both drinking the samewine.
You're drinking from a woodencup, they're drinking it from
from a golden chalice, right?
So this could go up always.
And also people who havesurvived by the sort of skin of
(51:47):
their teeth, as they say, insituations where they are too in
a collective sort of the kungo,the collective karma.
So right, if you take all ofthese elements into account the
collective karma and theindividual karma.
The collective karma and theindividual karma.
(52:07):
The time of immediate, delayedto a single lifetime, delayed to
multiple lifetimes, with thechance of spillover to the
offspring.
The above-the-table action,above-the-table reaction,
above-the-table action, underabove the table reaction, above
(52:28):
the table action, under thetable reaction, under the table
action, under the table reaction, under the table action, above
the table reaction.
I think I got them all.
And if you take all of thesethings, you know, write them on
(52:50):
a little note card, each one ofthose, and then you put them in
a container and you shake thatcontainer or you just toss the
elements and see them as theyfall, for every time you toss
them, right, the combination isgoing to be altered and
different and reorganized in somany possible combinations.
(53:10):
Right, this is the karmiccomplexity of life and we've
already said it's not a goodthing to oversimplify it.
Having said all of this, whatare we to do?
(53:34):
Wake up, wake up.
Wake up as much as possible, asfrequently as possible.
Wake up to the current here andnow.
Wake up to the present moment.
Wake up to where I am.
Only and only in that state ofwakefulness are we in a position
(53:56):
of altering the thing.
Don't go thinking, oh, thisparticular thing is woeful in my
life.
What should I do?
It's, it's a lot.
Now, having said that, we dohave to offer the fact that
(54:22):
masters know, masters know thepath.
So, like a dosa means the onewho knows, do means the way
right.
So, the one who knows the way.
So Zen masters and you knowthey can offer a pathway,
(54:50):
because there is a vision, thereis a knowing that is available.
And this is not only availableto Zen masters and monks.
We all have it.
We just have to train it, wehave to tend to it, we have to
polish it.
Just have to train it.
We have to tend to it, we haveto polish it, we have to work at
it and we can.
(55:11):
We can see the path.
I mean, when you go through aforest and an untrained eye, you
know you sort of scan, you scanthe, the forest area, you just
see trees and plants and grassesand rocks and you hear a
chipmunk and a this and a that,but for a trained tracker who
(55:33):
sees the broken branch and thenwho sees the footprint or sees
the kind of bent stalk of grass,they could see the way they
know who's been through there.
Speaker 3 (55:47):
The way, they know who's been through there, they
know who's been through there.
Speaker 2 (55:50):
They know, though, there's an animal highway right
there.
You know that's.
That's carved out by the animal.
But we, we are preoccupied withother things, because for a
normal person quote unquote whogoes into a forest, they're not
a forest creature, so they don'thave the perception we, we know
(56:13):
and we could reverse that.
Right, because then you get aforest dwelling creature, you
put them in a city and they'llget hit by a car.
Right, because they don't knowroad is a road, and so this is
true with fish and currents andlakes and waters, et cetera.
You know, fishermen and thosewith trained eye can see the
(56:37):
current by the waves.
They could see where thedangerous undercurrent is.
They could see, oh, it's goingto go, it's going gonna blow.
This is what we mentioned when.
How do you stop it?
Okay, I did it in a timelyfashion.
Stop as you, so we can see thepath, if we have the eye to see
(57:10):
the path.
For the most part, living aregular life concerned with with
the usual concerns ofday-to-day living, we haven't
the chance to train the sight,but that is a possibility, and
(57:36):
this is on account of thatadvice frequently that we
receive from our teachers andour masters and our monks and,
if they happen to havesufficient enough as what is one
of your favorite expressions,the ones with a little dust in
their eye.
So, if they have a little dustin their eye, they could advise
(58:02):
you how to go through the darktimes of life, how to navigate
the current conditions, becausethere is a site that is
available.
Speaker 3 (58:15):
I can't speak enough to that point that you're making
, because I want to alsopiggyback off what you're saying
and tell our audience to studyand learn and if you have the
let me say the good karmic roots, to have encountered a dosa, an
architect of the way, one whoknows the path, every moment
(58:39):
with them is a living, breathingopportunity to learn the dharma
, to learn the natural law.
And it's in these moments wherethere are these nuggets that are
just so nutritious for yourlife that it will literally
transform and alter your lifeand change the trajectory of
(59:00):
your karma that you might noteven be self-aware of, but they
are and it makes me think.
I mean, we have countlessstories with our dosanim, our
unsanim, but in particular, thisone story comes to mind about a
Zen master who had his who, hisstudents I forget if it was
they want to do a prank, or theywant to measure or test the Zen
(59:20):
master's patience, but eitherway it couldn't have been a good
karmic cause to take, let's say, a bucket of salt and put it
into a soup and then offer it toyour Zen master, and then the
students hid because they wantedto see the torture and pain
that that Zen master would gothrough, or to see if they can
(59:45):
trigger some anger and have himthrow the bowl and dump the soup
.
And this is this transformativemoment that these students were
not.
They didn't even conjure thethought in their mind what this
person was gonna do, but theimpact was so deep and so
profound.
I guarantee you they neverforgot that lesson, and it was
that the zen master sat throughthe whole bowl and ate it to the
(01:00:10):
very last drop right.
Speaker 2 (01:00:12):
So there's a the.
The back story of that is that,you know, said zen master
always talked about respect food, respect food, don't judge,
don't judge food, food is food,etc.
Food, et cetera, et cetera.
They're like oh yeah, yeah,we'll show you which.
You know, I think, as storiesgo it's, you know, I would like
to think that it wasn't so muchas a sort of oh yeah, but a
(01:00:37):
genuine kind of really.
You know, I could only hope so,as a disciple myself, you know,
I could only hope so as a, as a, as a disciple myself, you know
, I can only hope so.
And and, yeah, he ate it.
And and they asked oh, concernhim, wasn't the soup salty?
Mmm, I'd say, yeah, it wassalty mm-hmm then you know they
(01:01:02):
were perplexed by.
It was a little.
Then why did you eat it?
Wasn't it very salty?
It was very salty, say.
Why did you eat it?
he said I wasn't thinking somuch about the soup, but your
hearts and that you have offeredme this thing and I love you.
That's why I've eaten it, outof respect for you.
(01:01:24):
Of course, they wept withbroken to shattered, you know.
Whatever it was, whatever themotivation was yeah, it was
really.
He drove that point home andthey, like you said, they
certainly have never forgottenit.
Yeah, I bet it is.
Speaker 3 (01:01:43):
You carry that with you now into the future.
Speaker 2 (01:01:46):
It is challenging to and it is not a dismissal of an
individual person's ability tounderstand something We've had
so many times I had asked in thepast the thing of insanium and
(01:02:09):
he would say you'll understandlater.
And I hated that.
I've always hated that becauseyou know, I want to understand
my ego now, you know, I'm not animbecile.
I mean, I'm not.
Maybe you know the bright, thebrightest tool in the shed, but
you know, but I am not a buffoon.
I thought to myself.
(01:02:29):
My ego said that, right, I'mnot stupid, give it to me, I
could handle it.
And time and time again thesesort of things happened.
I could say now that he wasabsolutely correct.
The thought that we could graspthe thing that we are yet
(01:02:53):
unable to grasp is ludicrous.
It really is, and so sometimeswe need that faith, to have the
faith in the words of theteacher, to say okay, and when
this is done well, when thestudent and the teacher do their
(01:03:15):
respective jobs, realizationcomes.
Understanding comes,realization comes, understanding
comes, and the things that weresaid that made no sense.
You know, I had asked, sometimesunsung.
In one time I was working witha specific meditation technique
(01:03:36):
and I said he said I won't giveyou a different thing as I wait
a minute, but I like what I had.
He said you like it.
I said wait a minute, but Ilike what I have.
He said you like it.
I said yes, I feel like I'mmaking progress, I like the
method, I'm enjoying it, etcetera, et cetera.
I made a whole list of things.
(01:03:56):
He said yes, you want to gofrom here to, let's say,
Elizabeth and you have a bicycle.
You've had that bicycle, youlike it.
Would you rather put you know,like bedazzle your bicycle.
(01:04:21):
Or I wanna give you a car.
You don't wanna take it?
That was his kind of way of ofcourse right, it's, it's much
more luxurious and gets youthere faster.
So sometimes our egos hold onfor dear life to a thing because
of familiarity, to a thingbecause we've decided all by
(01:04:42):
ourselves, all all on our own,to you know, I'm going to do
this and we don't know.
What we don't know is the pointand we haven't yet.
So sometimes it is absolutelytrue, you will understand later.
(01:05:02):
You will understand later and Ibelieve those who have lived
sufficient amount of life thisrealization comes whether you
are pursuing some spiritualpaths or whatever, or not.
You just realize, ah now, Iknow.
And we have this, you know, whenyou turn 40.
Speaker 3 (01:05:21):
Yeah, I've had a bunch of those.
When I was in high school, mydad was like, don't hang out
with that guy.
I'm like, oh dad, you have nofreaking clue what you're
talking about.
That's right.
And as you get older you'relike, ah, he was 100% right,
that's right Experience.
Speaker 2 (01:05:36):
Yeah, well, I think that'll do.
Yeah, thank you those of youwho are listening, thank you
those of you who have chosen tosupport the podcast financially.
Until next time.
(01:05:59):
We're waiting for topics, Ithink.
Anyway, until next time, takecare of yourselves and each
other.
Speaker 3 (01:06:09):
I'm Milgan Sinim from my heart to yours.
I'm Dr Ruben Lambert.
If you like what you heard,please share it.
Pass it on to others.
Have a great day.
If you didn't understand someof the things that we talked
about here today, don't worry,you'll understand in due time.
Regarding the World Through Zen Eyes.
The depth, insights, wisdom,perspective and scope of these
podcasts cannot be overstated.
I feel I grow with each one Ihear.
Each is a treasure.
The topics are explored withhumor, warmth and accessibility.
(00:36):
I highly recommend them.
You'll be glad you tuned in, Isure am.
Speaker 2 (00:43):
Welcome back to yet another episode of the World
Through Zen Eyes podcast.
I am Myung An Sunim here withDr Ruben Lambert and we are
karmically bound to be back hereagain.
To be back here, again withpart two of the karma episode.
(01:05):
In fact, I wonder what ourlisteners think about doing
series.
Speaker 3 (01:16):
That's a good question, but you know there's a
way for us to find out.
Speaker 2 (01:20):
That's right If you are listening, you know what to
do.
Send us fan mail let us know,leave some comments.
Leave some comments, leave sometopics.
I mean, there is so muchinformation and this is not some
ego trip of trumpeting our kindof greatness, but there is so
(01:43):
much information we do meanderthrough various topics and if
there are things that arefurther to be explored, the
direction from the audience is,of course, a welcome and a nice
thing.
And a nice thing, as weinitially mentioned, it's
(02:10):
difficult to sort of decide byourselves, for ourselves, what
we're gonna talk about, althoughwe'll do it.
Speaker 3 (02:13):
But it's the traditional Zen style right the
student asks a question and theteacher responds that's right.
Yeah, Because in Zen, or in ZenBuddhism actually all Buddhism
we have 84,000 sutras.
It's a very vast universe outthere.
What part of the tree are youasking about, Right what?
(02:33):
Do you want?
To talk about.
What do you want to talk about?
So let us know and we'll giveyou something from the Zen
perspective.
Speaker 2 (02:41):
So karma, We've established op being karma,
simply meaning action, opjangbeing a container, the kind of
storehouse of our karma.
So now that we got that, weknow about the various cause and
(03:05):
effect and seeds and fruitionof karma, so we had
hyon-li-num-kwa.
Speaker 3 (03:08):
The table example.
Speaker 2 (03:09):
The table right hyon-li-num-kwa, hyon-li-num-kwa
.
So.
Action on the table.
Outcome on the table.
Action on the table.
Outcome under the table.
Action under the table.
Outcome under the table.
Action under the table.
Outcome above the table.
So under the table.
Outcome under the table.
Action under the table.
Outcome above the table.
So those were the combinationsand those are the things that we
(03:34):
brought it up, because theseare the kind of contentious
thing.
This is why people sometimesfind the concept of karma
difficult to grasp, because thetheaters are not so visible.
They are visible.
If you know, it's a forget in afight and I punch you, you
punch me, as we said, and that'sobvious, or you know, we're
(03:56):
arguing on above the tablemm-hmm on top of the table, and
when the cause or the effect isnot so obvious, we find it
difficult to kind of be, able totrace that.
Speaker 3 (04:13):
And then I think it leaves people puzzled.
It leaves people thenquestioning the world, their
life philosophy, their conceptof a God versus no God when it
comes from the unknown andpeople are not capable of
tracing things back to theirroots.
It's not so overt like Ipunched you and you punched me
(04:34):
back right.
That's right In your face.
It's blatant and there's animmediate action, reaction.
Then it leaves people withthese kinds of questions like
why do bad things happen to goodpeople?
Why did this person's life getcut short?
Why did this disease manifestsuddenly?
And understanding, I think, thephilosophy of upchang or karma
(05:08):
and cause and effect will bringrelief to your suffering.
But we honed in last time.
What I, or what we don't thinkis helpful or beneficial, is to
apply this logical reasoning andtry to trace back, step by step
, by step by step, to theinitial cause.
It's a long way it's a longways.
It's convoluted.
You don't have the wisdom tosee past certain obstacles and
barriers and limits of yourknowledge, so it's convoluted.
You don't have the wisdom tosee past certain obstacles and
barriers and limits of yourknowledge, so it's you're going
(05:29):
to get trapped and lost andoftentimes people then, in an
unhealthy fashion, take thingson as a personal thing, right?
So there's this guilt-riddenresponse.
Oftentimes that occurs.
So yeah, it is.
Speaker 2 (05:43):
You know you mentioned the, the disease being
brought on, and things.
There is and we do have thatalso in the organization of
karma the causes of ailments anddiseases.
Right, so too, karmically.
You know, cause and affecting,and and and.
(06:05):
Again, I do want to make a sortof disclaimer, if you will.
It's we must be very cautiousthat to one then thinks, oh, I'm
a bad person, that's why, youknow, I have x, y, z, that's,
that's not it.
That is such a grotesque andand and really kind of vile
(06:25):
oversimplification.
A reductionist, yeah, reduceperspective to just, and then we
?
The danger then is not only forourselves, but then also that
could very easily be the fuelfor judgment and prejudice and
racism and sexism and ageism,and you name it it's, brick by
brick, layering the walls ofyour hell.
Speaker 3 (06:48):
And so we, yeah, I'm just saying like, like, this
concept of opchang getssuperimposed on the nature of
reality, and I might meander fora second, but it we're all here
on this earth to learn and wehave all taken on a body.
So, aside from upchang and thisis also partially upchang, but
that framework sits within theidea that there's a body, that
(07:11):
the body is impermanent.
This goes almost to theformidable truth, and the body
is conducive to decay, birth,old age, sickness and death.
Right?
So, regardless of the upchang,this comes to all because we
have entered into a physicalbody made of jisu huapun, earth,
wind, water and father fire,which is now, uh can, it has to
(07:34):
undergo these conditions, right?
So yeah, it is.
Speaker 2 (07:38):
And so, then, what we also have right in terms of the
karmic causalities of sickness.
We might as well go down thatroute, okay, so first of all,
sickness caused karmicallycaused, sort of by action
created in one's past life.
Then we have the sicknesskarmically caused by action
(08:04):
created in this life, and thenwe have sickness by the karma of
ignorance, right?
So, whether this life, pastlife, that's, you know just a
sort of ignorance.
And what we then end up with is,you know, a kind of
understanding of theseconditions as again having
(08:29):
causality, anx, stress andanxiety, right on the physical,
being so.
(08:53):
So many diseases nowadays aremanufactured in a sense, or the
outcome of mental states ofworries, anxieties, etc.
Etc.
The depressive, you know,patterns of thinking, all of
that, and I am by no means kindof excusing or trying to suggest
that mental illness is justsomething.
(09:14):
Think yourself out of it, butthe causality is there.
We get ourselves into trouble,we cause our diseases.
That's the ignorance element.
By not knowing any better, wedo a thing.
(09:34):
So we could think, for example,with addiction, the initial, I
mean mean unless you're born,you know, and your mother, the,
the father, the whole thing, youknow.
But so the usual track foraddiction is that it's a choice
(09:57):
to use that then perpetuatesinto an addictive state, I mean
if you have an addictivepersonality and predispositions
and all of that.
So maybe the first and I knowfrom members of my family, in
fact, the initial using is achoice, choice governed by
(10:23):
ignorance.
Right is a choice, choicegoverned by ignorance.
Speaker 3 (10:32):
You're right that then the initial use becomes now
you have to, you're, now,you're trapped, you've
completely entrapped and snaredby the thralls of addiction and
can come out and I would imagineand venture to say, whatever
that person thought at the onsetor the onboarding or the
initial use of this drug,whatever they fantasize in their
mind at that moment, this isgoing to make me feel better.
(10:55):
This is going to make all myproblems go away.
This is going to make such andsuch thing better the view what?
happened everything?
Yeah, the viewing was a goodidea, but what happened after
some time?
Where the person no longer isin control of their choices?
It's now the drug that that hasoverridden their choices and,
like I've mentioned earlierepisodes, it can override a
(11:16):
person's choices beyond evenwhat the natural instincts of
life, the natural driving forcesof life, are, like having love
and relationships, having yourbasic needs, like food, man, it
will override even those things.
Right, you'll steal fromsomeone that you care about and
you'll neglect your nutritionalneeds just to get your fix.
Uh, that's what I'm saying.
There's this huge discrepancybetween that initial moment
(11:38):
where it was a choice driven byfantasies, that, driven by
fantasies, that kind ofvalidated that choice.
This is a good idea, you know,this is gonna make you your pain
go away, this is gonna makeyour relationship better.
This is gonna make all yourproblems go away, right, and
then whoosh, magically, like Isaid yeah none of that was true,
(12:00):
because now it was true, forfor a time
Speaker 2 (12:04):
whatever one-time, one time use.
This person used one time.
They shut up one time and youfast forward later and
eventually it becomes where theydon't want to be, where they
are.
But now the addictive elementand that cyclical, hellish,
reincarnating karmic thingbecomes yeah, it ended their
(12:30):
life eventually.
Speaker 3 (12:32):
And I was thinking about that, the specific person
who you're referring to.
I don't think that they evenconjured up any idea that their
life would have ended with deathin the initial stage.
Oh yeah, Right.
Speaker 2 (12:46):
Yeah.
So we have that kind of, youknow, there's a causality by
ignorance, and then we have thecausality by karmically kind of
driven, and then we have the onethat's karmically from past
lives you know, and that's sortof we could say it's a little
bit of a longer term.
(13:09):
Having said that, I mean is thisis going to be a lot
collectively, but I really dohope that it's going to dispel
some of the oversimplificationsand and, in fact, if you really
put this together and don'tcatch feelings, as the kids
nowadays say- if you don't catchfeelings about it, then it
(13:33):
really can inform our lives in away that we can unbind from so
much unnecessary suffering inour lives.
So what we haven't yet mentioned, I don't think were the karma
that we call Seungmyung, whichis the karma that we have, karma
(13:55):
that you can change and karmathat you cannot change.
And again, here karma means I'musing it, as we've discussed in
the first part of this, usingit sort of in that loosely
defined term, that is to say, Iam born to the parents I was
(14:17):
born to.
That's unchangeable Parents.
Could you know whatever?
I could disown parents.
Parents could disown youwhatever.
Legally you know all thosethings, but the reality of the
fact is that is unchangeable.
And then we have other kind ofreorganizations and we could do
(14:39):
many things.
So we have also other karmas ofour lives that we cannot change
, cannot change.
We work towards amelioration ofthat suffering and
understanding and getting wiserand tipping the scales.
And then we have karma that ischangeable, this sort of more
(15:03):
lighter type of thing.
And so there are things insideof control and outside of our
control, depending on on theheaviness of the karma.
We have the causality ofvisible and invisible, invisible
cause and visible and and thatwhole combination of those
things which is, you know, wesee this with corruption and we
(15:30):
see this with with public figurebeing, one way, you know, sort
of the typical political theater, right, what you see isn't what
you get, it's not.
And then we have the thingswhere you get something, what
you get is not what you get,it's not, yeah.
And then we have the thingswhere you get something, what
you get is not what you see.
(15:50):
And then we have when you getwhat you see, and then what you
don't you get, you don't see,get what you don't.
Speaker 3 (15:58):
So it really answers everything.
We're done, that's done A lotof seeing and not seeing.
Everything's been answered Overthe table, under the table.
Speaker 2 (16:06):
It's really which would then, you know, if we use
it properly to inform our lives,what we end up doing is simply
understanding, not groaning andmoaning, not bemoaning our
conditions, not.
We simply know, ah, there's acause and effect, and then what
(16:30):
we could do is respond.
We could take time.
We simply know, ah, there's acause and effect, and then what
we could do is respond.
We could take time and energy.
There's a sort of economy inthat, because then we could
spend energy addressing theissue as opposed to spend energy
bemoaning the issue, as opposedto spend energy bemoaning the
issue and worrying about theissue and complaining about the
(16:54):
issue.
Those are energy saps.
They, they drain, you know,life out of people so frequently
metaphorically and literally.
Speaker 3 (17:04):
Metaphorically and literally yes.
Speaker 2 (17:06):
And so if we could now have this understanding of
ah, there are visible causes andinvisible outcomes, and
invisible outcomes and invisiblecauses and all of that, there
are causes within this singlelifetime that are obviously kind
of more traceable, frequently,right, and then there are causes
(17:31):
over multiple lifetimes.
We get the combination of allthose things.
So what we need to have in theface of our life experience is
an aha moment and kind of stateof wakefulness to say, okay,
that's what it is what it is.
It's sort of dharmic in thatsense.
Dharma means you know, that'show it is what it is.
It's sort of dharmic in thatsense.
Dharma means that's how it is atleast one definition, and so
(17:55):
this is how this is.
What am I going to do about it?
Is the question that we have toask ourselves what am I going
to do about it, ask ourselves,what am I going to do about it?
(18:16):
And and then we, we are facedwith a freedom of choice.
Frequently, and if we are thenin a place where I have no
freedom of choice but I havefreedom of perception, a freedom
of perspective.
Right, there was a gentleman ina Chinese prison and he was
(18:43):
given a document to sign to kindkind of recant his you know
position, and he refused, and sothey've thrown him into prison.
Not only was he in prison, buthe was sentenced to from
(19:06):
something to the effect from 6am to from something to the
effect from 6 am until 6 pm,with breaks for bathrooms and
whatever things.
But he was said to have to siton like a six-inch stool, so
nearly squatting.
So I'm comfortable position tobegin with and eventually, by
(19:30):
whatever means, he was releasedor however that unfolded.
He was asked then how he wasable to manage.
And this is where this idea ofpeople who have gone through
living hell, who come out on theother end, who come out on the
(19:55):
other side of this kind ofliving hell, frequently come out
with a perspective that they'veutilized as they were walking
through the hellfire, and it's asort of what I call sacred
gullibility, right, becauseotherwise your entire kind of
(20:16):
soul is consumed and if you domake it out, you hate.
It's a really kind of there's anumber that's done.
And then there are people whogo through this hellfire and
come out and in a sense survived, a kind of phoenix thing rising
(20:39):
from the ashes type of thing.
And you know this gentlemansitting on the stool, he thought
of all the meals, and this isyears, right, so years worth of
you know.
He thought of all the meals andthis is years, right, so years
worth of you know.
So things of trying to rememberthings from the past, from the
childhood, uh, you know,thinking of all the favorite
meals that he would like to eat,and and went all the way into
(21:01):
sort of astronomy and astrology,and and metaphysics and, and,
and you, and quantum theoriesand what else he was thinking
about.
Essentially, what he did is hetook a trip every day in his
mind to travel someplace, andthis is kind of what got him
(21:21):
through.
So the condition in which he wasin, namely that of prison and
that further than torture, ishaving to remain sort of seated
on this tiny stool, that was thecondition, but he used his mind
(21:43):
in a creative way where theconditions were sort of
transcended and it's thattranscendence.
And so when we are faced withconditions in our lives, and
even when it seems that we haveabsolute no choice to do
anything about it, there is adoing, there's a realm of doing
(22:10):
that exists in in the mind, inthe psyche, in the perception
and and the it's.
It's a challenging thing tograsp and and frankly, really
via spiritual, it's calledenlightenment, is the real
realization as, as as one herethis ahead, yeah with the skull
(22:33):
and and all of that.
Speaker 3 (22:34):
And you know we'll relay that story at some point
in time about this idea of mindcreating the world around us I
think that's a very good pointand we were talking about
disease earlier and for thosepeople who have suffered with
chronic illness, this gives thema sense of hope, where the body
(22:58):
is undergoing decay of illnessand will eventually meet its
mortality, like all of us.
But for some, sooner than later, this part is immovable.
This part is a karmicconsequence that they can't do
anything about.
Maybe they've reached thelimits of modern medicine.
(23:20):
And so then the area in whichthey do find relief is in their
mind, in their hearts and intheir souls.
Coming to terms with andaccepting that reality, then
people get a glimpse of peace,eternal peace, amidst this great
(23:41):
tragedy that we all feel forthose people.
But there may be no return backto a state of health for the
body.
This is a reality for manypeople, yes, and if you just
hone in on that one piece and wedon't have this deeper layer
(24:01):
like you're referring to now,just like the man that was in
prison, that was immovable, forfor him he couldn't get out of
that, but there was a part thatwas not exposed to, let's say,
suffering, and that was theinner part of the mind.
This was the realm in whichthere was some empowerment,
there, where he could direct hismind.
(24:21):
And in the same manner, a personwho is working and struggling
through a chronic illness andhas faced their mortality,
struggling through a chronicillness and has faced their
mortality, well, the body may bedying, but the mind certainly
does not have to.
You can still work with aprofessional work, with your
faith, and find a sense ofacceptance which ultimately
(24:42):
leads to this eternal peace, andI think this almost jives with
to bring another things withpart of what you were talking
about at sunday service in themoment of aligning yourself with
pop, aligning yourself with thedharma and versus going against
it and just grinding up againstthis thing that you will never
(25:03):
be able to get rid of or get outof your life, right.
So these are?
Speaker 2 (25:07):
these are hard these are hard topics, pain in
particular.
It's, it's a, it's a big deal,yeah, um.
And then we have where the bodyis healthy in the sense, but
then the mind becomes to go thathappens that kind of?
Thing.
So when you said mind, youmeant something more
transcendent than just theelectrical storm in a brain that
(25:29):
we consider as from certainperspective, as the mind.
Not the chip, Not the chipright.
So, there is a causality andthere's a perspective that we
(25:50):
could have, and this is whatwe're hoping that with this
particular two episode thing, toshed some light on these
elements of life that have afreeing ability, elements of
life that have a freeing ability.
(26:12):
So we have, and last time, inthe last episode, I was saying
how neatly put together theepisode has been, because it is
a systematic kind of approach tolife.
(26:32):
In a sense it's very kind of wedelineate cause and effect as
we've gone back and forth withthese.
Now, what we haven't talkedabout is Jungi in terms of karma
.
So Jungi, buljungi, mujungi arethe time, is in terms of karma.
So are the time element We'vementioned it briefly but also
(26:58):
what we need to consider, right,we've presented as seasons at
some point in time, right?
So not only is the visibility ofcause and its outcome, the
cause and effect being visible,sort of above the table, a
(27:19):
element and cause above thetable, result under the table,
cause under the table, resultabove the table, cause under the
table, result under the table.
So that's one kind of element,one combination.
But then we also have toconsider the time element.
So according to the fruition ofkarma, according to the time.
(27:43):
So jongi means an immediatecause and effect, and this is
the easiest one.
And when we talked about, youknow us sitting, you know across
one another from a table andand you know we have this above
the visible to every participantof the dinner party.
You know you, I do a thing, youdo a thing, everybody sees it,
(28:06):
everybody knows it, and it'staking place in real time.
It's taking place here and now.
So the cause and effect arealmost immediate.
The fun example of this is ifyou're nailing a nail into the
wall, that you're trying to hangsomething, let's say, and you
hit your finger.
You see the nail, you see thefinger, you see the hammer, you
(28:31):
see all of those elements.
You see the hammer land on thefinger and you see the finger.
Everything is known.
Speaker 3 (28:37):
You feel it.
Yeah, it's right there.
Everything's registered.
Every step was registered inyour consciousness.
Speaker 2 (28:43):
Yeah, it's very obvious, it's very visible.
It's very obvious, it's veryvisible, it's very clear.
There's the cause, there's theeffect.
The timeliness of the cause andeffect are immediately, right
now, visible, we don't reallyeven have to think about it.
Now we do have to be cautious,and this is what frequently
happens when we cast judgmentupon others, or when we cast
(29:13):
judgment upon others or when wecast judgment upon ourselves,
Because just because the visiblecause and effect and the time,
etc.
Etc.
We have to also consider thesort of conditions.
And so what we frequently, likewe've mentioned, I believe in
the last episode, if you'vefallen face first into a puddle
(29:39):
of mud and you have a kind ofmoment of oh, I remember I
shoved my best friend when I wasa child into it, and so we
create this correlation that isfrankly just speculation really,
because we pair and match theexpression of it so shoved into
(30:03):
mud and now shoved into mud.
That means they must beconnected and it's much more
complex than that.
So many other elements are atplay, so many interweavings of
cause and effect are at play,that to reduce it like this,
what we end up, and the dangerthere is, the danger of judgment
(30:24):
, of prejudice, right, there's adanger of all the isms, racisms
, this because, oh, that person,that color person, that race
person, that you knownationality person did a thing
to me.
And then we draw thisconclusion well, you know,
they're all like it.
You know, and, and, and itmakes sense, and so we could
(30:44):
draw these dots, we makeconnections and we don't allow
each moment, each new moment, Aprior experience can inform the
new moment.
Speaker 3 (30:52):
but for heaven's sake , give the courtesy and respect
to the idea of newness.
Right and the idea of limitationof one's knowledge, right, but
in a new moment, there's alwaysthe infinite potential for
things to go in differentdirections.
And if it had to do withanother person prior to this
moment doing something from ahuman rights, humanistic
(31:15):
perspective, this is a differentperson, right?
And we're not.
We're blinded by the past andyou're not giving this person
their true uh right to to freelybe who they are and to express
themselves in the manner inwhich they want.
You're now tainting who theyare with your judgments, with
(31:36):
your biases, with your limitedperceptions.
Speaker 2 (31:41):
It's worth remembering these things,
because tools, tools, tools aretools.
How do you use the tools?
Knife isn't bad.
No, a knife is a knife is aknife is a knife as a rose is a
rose is a rose, so what do youdo with?
Do you use it properly?
you could make a fantasticsandwich with your knife
(32:02):
absolutely or your sergeant cansave your life sergeant could
serve your life, or somebodyelse could end somebody's life,
or he could end somebody's life.
And, maim, it's what you dowith the tools.
So we have to be careful.
Now, given this perspective onkarma, we have to always
remember to guard our mind andthe proclivities of our ego
(32:26):
thinking.
The proclivities of our egothinking and the tendencies that
we have to want to molt andalter reality to satisfy our own
imagined way that things work.
And we could very easily thenuse and justify behaviors on
account of our quote-unquoteenlightenment.
(32:51):
It's obviously not enlightenment, but we see this because
otherwise, how is it thatreligious people I mean across
the board, right why?
How is it that religious peopledo some of the things that they
do?
It's in such disalignment andmisalignment of their fates or
the teachings of their fates,etc.
(33:11):
How is it that they do thethings that they do, even though
and then what we get?
The famous one, even thoughthey know better what they know
let's say we have thisinformation they mangle and
mutilate the information tomatch their own agenda.
Really dangerous, really dark,dark alley to go down.
(33:35):
And you end up in a differentkind of hell when you use your
spirituality or your religiousperspectives and points of views
mangled to satisfy your ownagendas and what it?
It's a special, special placein the hell realms for that, the
(33:57):
religious loophole right and,and this is the, the, that's the
thing, it's the idea, oh, youknow it's, it's uh lofty, thinks
one to oneself.
Oh, this is justified byScripture or by this or by that.
It's a mangling, twisting andturning and, like I said, it's a
(34:19):
different kind of hell.
Speaker 3 (34:20):
So much pain and suffering has been at the tip.
Of this is what Scripture callsme to do.
Speaker 2 (34:25):
Yeah, we really have to be cautious.
Speaker 3 (34:31):
That's across the board.
For any yes, and I've said thisso many times, my karma ran
over your dogma type of thing.
Anyone who's engaged in strictdogmatic.
Speaker 2 (34:41):
Fixated.
Speaker 3 (34:42):
Fixated.
But that's religion Rigorous.
Speaker 2 (34:47):
And I've said it time and time again and I say it
again there's no more, biggerand worse type of ego than that
religious one.
The spiritual ego, thereligious ego, is one of the
most dangerous that I canimagine.
Speaker 3 (35:06):
That's why the buildings of many religious
institutions are so damn tall Tofit the egos of all those
people there.
Speaker 2 (35:13):
Big door.
Yeah, so we have the cause andeffect and the time being sort
of immediate, if you will, rightThen.
So that's, then we have meaningthat there is no, the, the
(35:34):
causality, the cause and effect,the fruition of the seed has a
delay, delay, however delay thatexists within a single lifetime
.
Delay, delay, however delaythat exists within a single
lifetime.
You know so, and as we bringthis up and as we kind of
(35:59):
working this out, one must alsoremember that one action, let's
say that the cause and effect,as an example, the cause and
effect is visible to everybody,the time is visible to everybody
(36:20):
, and then that the one cause inthat expression, so the one
cause in that expression, so theknown cause and the visible and
known outcome, the time of itbeing immediately, so what do we
(36:43):
get, is not an end of a chainreaction.
We also have to remember thatwhen we're thinking of karma.
So what we have is one causecreating an outcome and the
circumstances.
The outcome is immediate, butthen the resulting thing is the
(37:04):
seed or the beginning ofpotentially another revolution
of this.
So something done visibly orpublicly, the outcome, seen
visibly and publicly, it'simmediate.
Out of that is born a seed.
That seed then, depending onhow handled, can then become a
(37:25):
seed that now grows into thenext life.
So it's not always like visibleinvisible.
Visible invisible it's notalways, it's not a repetition of
the thing.
They, they, they really arefantastic.
Speaker 3 (37:39):
I mean, it's kind of fascinating and it does not
allow a person to create thisone algorithm that will answer
or explain every person's life.
Every person is a world.
Every person is a uniqueuniverse Onto themselves, right?
Because maybe one person andthis is where you can really get
(38:00):
trapped up and if you'restrictly applying logical
reasoning in these situationswhere it's like, oh, you punch
someone, they punch you back youknow, I learned that is
immediate karma and then you,and then maybe you go and look
at another situation, or you goand do it yourself and you punch
someone and they don't punchyou back and you're like, aha,
(38:21):
they lied to me, right, right,this is this.
Is you just narrowing the wholeworld to one little grain of
sand of the vast oceans filledwith sands that exists out there
?
You could really get trapped upand then lose belief or
understanding and no longerfurther your studies or your
contemplation of theseprinciples.
Speaker 2 (38:44):
Yeah, it is a….
Yeah, it is a.
Please, those of you who arelistening, consider these talks
of ours, these conversations ofours, these points that we're
trying to make, if there are any, as you know.
Tend to them cautiously, andthis is where the pursuit of
(39:04):
wisdom is always paired with,whatever it is, other element.
Always we talk about compassionand when lacking in wisdom it
turns into something.
Compassion could becomeproblematic if it hasn't the
wisdom.
I know we've mentioned thatcompassion is kind of love with
(39:27):
wisdom in a sense.
Speaker 3 (39:29):
But you know Right, because we have those sense
stories, and it almost remindsme of the original Karate Kid
story too, where you have themaster-student relationship and
the master says simply justfollow, you know, go and chop
wood.
And then the student does thatfor a certain amount of time and
then he confronts the master ata later time.
(39:50):
Master, you have told me, youknow, by doing such and such it
would bring this kind of effectI thought I was coming here for
a karate lesson.
You know the same thing withwith boshi right?
You tell someone you know, dowater donation, you need more
water donation so that this suchand such thing can come into
your life.
And someone does it for acertain amount of time and they
(40:10):
don't get the outcome they wish.
And then again there's thatconfrontation, either internally
challenging you know, yourbeliefs, or challenging the
person who told you and sayingyou have lied to me, this isn't
the case.
And I just want to go back,before I pass the baton to you,
to the karate kid moment fromthe original Karate Kid with
Rough Macho, where Mr Miyagi istelling him to send the floor,
(40:30):
send the floor, send the floor.
And paint the fence, wax on,wax off.
And then there's that famousmoment in the movie.
He's like you haven't taught meanything.
And he's like, oh yeah.
And then that's where he saysshow me, send the floor.
And he strikes him and thenhe's able to block every single
punch with that technique.
Speaker 2 (40:48):
That is punking.
We use that in Zen all the time.
I had a gentleman.
I saw another episode, but goahead.
I had a gentleman, years ago,came to meditation class and
happened to be the only onethere and I started doing deep
bowing you know 180 bows, andhe's following along and I
bowing, you know 180 bows, andhe's following along and I hear
him, you know, challenged by itand you know, behind me.
(41:10):
So we finished the thing,finished class.
He stops by the front desk atthe time I didn't even have a
splendor of an office like I donow, my little nook and he says,
you know, kind of upset in thisvoice, I came for meditation
(41:33):
class.
There you go.
I said you don't think that wasmeditation class, do you?
He said no, yeah, he came tosit down.
That's why he didn't come for aclass.
Here in class, you learnsomething he came to.
(41:57):
You know I am here dance monkey, monk, monk E.
Speaker 3 (42:05):
Whatever story I created or picture I made in my
mind, right so.
Speaker 2 (42:10):
so are you here for a lesson?
Are you here to learn?
Are you here for a class or areyou here just you know, for me
to do what you, and then, andthere's same time and place, and
, and, and you know eachindividual person at each
individual step in their journey, et cetera, et cetera.
He became a member of the ZenCenter A few years later, took
(42:33):
precepts, so it became my.
One could speculate thatperhaps if he came for sit-down
meditation and I gave himexactly what he thought he
needed, he would have walked outand never come back.
Speaker 3 (42:55):
Very much, very likely.
Speaker 2 (42:57):
Yeah, it's not as simplistic as we frequently
imagine it to be.
So we have now time fruitionright, immediate delayed, that
(43:17):
is to say delayed from withinonce, one single lifetime.
We know that the cause andeffect, that the effect, the
fruition of that will be inwithin single lifetime.
And then we have, which isunknown, the unknown season of
fruition of the seeds of ourkarma.
(43:39):
And this is interesting becausenow it throws the thing in, it
throws a sort of bit of a wrench.
Perhaps we can see the seed, sowe could.
Now we have the above the tableconfrontation.
Let's say, I've thrown water inyour face and you didn't
(44:05):
respond in kind, and theneverybody thinks all right,
that's, you know, he wasassaulted, he didn't retaliate,
end of story.
And then maybe next lifetime Idrown.
You know it's a drastic it's adrastic kind of thing you know.
(44:29):
But that is to say, you know, wedon't know.
Sometimes we don't know whenthe fruition happens, and so
this makes for a very complexuniverse of going uns, for a
very complex universe ofgoing-ons.
(44:53):
The causes are visible or thecauses are invisible.
The outcomes are invisible orvisible.
The cause and outcomes happenin a single lifetime, they
happen over multiple lifetimes,they happen immediately, et
cetera, et cetera.
Now here's one that sometimestakes people by surprise,
(45:13):
because even if one's cause andeffect aren't seen within that
person's lifetime, it can beseen within three to four
generations of their offsprings,which is a sometimes people are
(45:34):
kind of knocked by that.
Speaker 3 (45:39):
Well, we have some dna evidence right, that's the
thing that is kind of alludingand pointing to those things.
Speaker 2 (45:44):
Absolutely.
You know we've talked aboutthat study that was done that
suggested something to the factthat if your grandfather starved
not starved to death, but had ahard winter, let's say at an
age of whatever 8 to 14, someteenage years, if you had a
(46:12):
rough winter and there wasinsufficient food and things of
that nature, that yourlikelihood of developing
cardiovascular disease issignificantly less.
And so it's kind of a gift fromgrandpa, you know, on account
of his suffering, Right.
So we have to also considerthat it's also not just you do
(46:35):
the kind of suffering we couldsay, because then we have that
good and bad linear thinkingalso.
So grandpa suffered, but, andprobably it's not even a matter
of perspective, I'm sure At thattime he was like man, this
sucks, you know, I'm starving,I'm hungry, I'm cold, I'm
(46:58):
whatever you know rough time.
Absolutely, we're not eventalking about that.
Grandpa had sort of a shift ofperspective and said, oh, you
know what I'm gonna, I'm gonnathink of my grandson and and I'm
gonna suffer this with graceand and you know I will bestow
upon him a less likely you knowlikeliness of of having a a um,
(47:21):
cardiovascular cardiovasculardisease, right, you.
So grandpa suffered andsuffered the suffering,
potentially, but yet as anoutcome of said suffering, is
something that is positive.
So now I think there's only oneelement cherry on top of this
(47:45):
all Saup and Kongop Individualkarma, individual person's karma
and the collective karma.
Ladies and gentlemen, folks, Ithink we have come to the end of
(48:07):
explanations of all things inthe vast universe.
We are so interconnected withone another At times this really
is a tapestry of existence,Because we have and this isn't
(48:30):
necessarily so how to clarifythe collective karma.
I mean individual karma is sortof obvious.
Right, You're walking through adesert and a cow falls on your
head and kills you dead.
In a sense, we could say that'san individual karma.
You were just out there in adesert and it was karmically
(48:53):
yours to be splatted by a cow.
We have that story of thefortune teller, if you recall it
call it was told you know, ah,you're going to die in three
years and stayed home, had hisyou know, essentially food and
and provisions ubered, or youknow to him and and medieval
(49:14):
over medieval right you know,delivered and walks out of his
door three days and, uh, threeyears later and the dad and a
cow falls and kills him, right.
And when I tell that storypeople's like, oh, that's
children's story.
And I say to that you haven'tseen a tornado, have you?
Speaker 3 (49:35):
yeah, you're telling me there's no flying cows?
Speaker 2 (49:37):
yeah, you know, there's no when, when fishes
rain right in the united statesthere's so many, so many, a lot
of stories, episodes, right whenthe fish rain falling from the
sky because of a volcano I meana tornado slurped up a lake and
fish and frog are falling.
You know the end of times.
(49:58):
If you're biblically inclined,you know that's it.
You go and you know prepare forrapture because you got the
rain of salmon going on.
You know prepare for rapturebecause you got the rain of
salmon going on.
You know, and so that's thekind of, we could say,
individual.
Speaker 3 (50:15):
You're walking through this and a splat goes
the cow and your pancake.
Well, I think for a corn up.
There are many examples Peoplethat were in the Twin Towers for
9-11.
People that have been in warstogether, People who have been
in the same car and there's anaccident of some sort, or just
simply the term that we alwayssay you're on the same boat,
right If you're on the samecruise ship and a giant wave
(50:35):
comes.
Does the person in the smallestroom feel it and the person
who's in the biggest suite notfeel that wave?
Right they all equally feel theimpact of that wave because
they're all literally on thesame boat, that's that's a
fantastic way of putting it,because your your individual
karma, that the element of theindividual karma is the size of
(50:58):
europe.
Speaker 2 (50:58):
You got the third class shabby accommodations, and
then there's a somebody else ina penthouse with you know fancy
champagne bottles, and so thatthere's the individual karma
element and there's thecollective karma that it's one
boat, yeah, and titanic down itgoes there it is.
Speaker 3 (51:15):
I mean, one can be drinking their wine in a wooden
cup and the other one in a goldcup, but when the wave comes,
they both spill that's right,and again.
Speaker 2 (51:25):
And so then the other way, right, you could have your
collective karma.
Is the wine, right?
They're both drinking the samewine.
You're drinking from a woodencup, they're drinking it from
from a golden chalice, right?
So this could go up always.
And also people who havesurvived by the sort of skin of
(51:47):
their teeth, as they say, insituations where they are too in
a collective sort of the kungo,the collective karma.
So right, if you take all ofthese elements into account the
collective karma and theindividual karma.
The collective karma and theindividual karma.
(52:07):
The time of immediate, delayedto a single lifetime, delayed to
multiple lifetimes, with thechance of spillover to the
offspring.
The above-the-table action,above-the-table reaction,
above-the-table action, underabove the table reaction, above
(52:28):
the table action, under thetable reaction, under the table
action, under the table reaction, under the table action, above
the table reaction.
I think I got them all.
And if you take all of thesethings, you know, write them on
(52:50):
a little note card, each one ofthose, and then you put them in
a container and you shake thatcontainer or you just toss the
elements and see them as theyfall, for every time you toss
them, right, the combination isgoing to be altered and
different and reorganized in somany possible combinations.
(53:10):
Right, this is the karmiccomplexity of life and we've
already said it's not a goodthing to oversimplify it.
Having said all of this, whatare we to do?
(53:34):
Wake up, wake up.
Wake up as much as possible, asfrequently as possible.
Wake up to the current here andnow.
Wake up to the present moment.
Wake up to where I am.
Only and only in that state ofwakefulness are we in a position
(53:56):
of altering the thing.
Don't go thinking, oh, thisparticular thing is woeful in my
life.
What should I do?
It's, it's a lot.
Now, having said that, we dohave to offer the fact that
(54:22):
masters know, masters know thepath.
So, like a dosa means the onewho knows, do means the way
right.
So, the one who knows the way.
So Zen masters and you knowthey can offer a pathway,
(54:50):
because there is a vision, thereis a knowing that is available.
And this is not only availableto Zen masters and monks.
We all have it.
We just have to train it, wehave to tend to it, we have to
polish it.
Just have to train it.
We have to tend to it, we haveto polish it, we have to work at
it and we can.
(55:11):
We can see the path.
I mean, when you go through aforest and an untrained eye, you
know you sort of scan, you scanthe, the forest area, you just
see trees and plants and grassesand rocks and you hear a
chipmunk and a this and a that,but for a trained tracker who
(55:33):
sees the broken branch and thenwho sees the footprint or sees
the kind of bent stalk of grass,they could see the way they
know who's been through there.
Speaker 3 (55:47):
The way, they know who's been through there, they
know who's been through there.
Speaker 2 (55:50):
They know, though, there's an animal highway right
there.
You know that's.
That's carved out by the animal.
But we, we are preoccupied withother things, because for a
normal person quote unquote whogoes into a forest, they're not
a forest creature, so they don'thave the perception we, we know
(56:13):
and we could reverse that.
Right, because then you get aforest dwelling creature, you
put them in a city and they'llget hit by a car.
Right, because they don't knowroad is a road, and so this is
true with fish and currents andlakes and waters, et cetera.
You know, fishermen and thosewith trained eye can see the
(56:37):
current by the waves.
They could see where thedangerous undercurrent is.
They could see, oh, it's goingto go, it's going gonna blow.
This is what we mentioned when.
How do you stop it?
Okay, I did it in a timelyfashion.
Stop as you, so we can see thepath, if we have the eye to see
(57:10):
the path.
For the most part, living aregular life concerned with with
the usual concerns ofday-to-day living, we haven't
the chance to train the sight,but that is a possibility, and
(57:36):
this is on account of thatadvice frequently that we
receive from our teachers andour masters and our monks and,
if they happen to havesufficient enough as what is one
of your favorite expressions,the ones with a little dust in
their eye.
So, if they have a little dustin their eye, they could advise
(58:02):
you how to go through the darktimes of life, how to navigate
the current conditions, becausethere is a site that is
available.
Speaker 3 (58:15):
I can't speak enough to that point that you're making
, because I want to alsopiggyback off what you're saying
and tell our audience to studyand learn and if you have the
let me say the good karmic roots, to have encountered a dosa, an
architect of the way, one whoknows the path, every moment
(58:39):
with them is a living, breathingopportunity to learn the dharma
, to learn the natural law.
And it's in these moments wherethere are these nuggets that are
just so nutritious for yourlife that it will literally
transform and alter your lifeand change the trajectory of
(59:00):
your karma that you might noteven be self-aware of, but they
are and it makes me think.
I mean, we have countlessstories with our dosanim, our
unsanim, but in particular, thisone story comes to mind about a
Zen master who had his who, hisstudents I forget if it was
they want to do a prank, or theywant to measure or test the Zen
(59:20):
master's patience, but eitherway it couldn't have been a good
karmic cause to take, let's say, a bucket of salt and put it
into a soup and then offer it toyour Zen master, and then the
students hid because they wantedto see the torture and pain
that that Zen master would gothrough, or to see if they can
(59:45):
trigger some anger and have himthrow the bowl and dump the soup
.
And this is this transformativemoment that these students were
not.
They didn't even conjure thethought in their mind what this
person was gonna do, but theimpact was so deep and so
profound.
I guarantee you they neverforgot that lesson, and it was
that the zen master sat throughthe whole bowl and ate it to the
(01:00:10):
very last drop right.
Speaker 2 (01:00:12):
So there's a the.
The back story of that is that,you know, said zen master
always talked about respect food, respect food, don't judge,
don't judge food, food is food,etc.
Food, et cetera, et cetera.
They're like oh yeah, yeah,we'll show you which.
You know, I think, as storiesgo it's, you know, I would like
to think that it wasn't so muchas a sort of oh yeah, but a
(01:00:37):
genuine kind of really.
You know, I could only hope so,as a disciple myself, you know,
I could only hope so as a, as a, as a disciple myself, you know
, I can only hope so.
And and, yeah, he ate it.
And and they asked oh, concernhim, wasn't the soup salty?
Mmm, I'd say, yeah, it wassalty mm-hmm then you know they
(01:01:02):
were perplexed by.
It was a little.
Then why did you eat it?
Wasn't it very salty?
It was very salty, say.
Why did you eat it?
he said I wasn't thinking somuch about the soup, but your
hearts and that you have offeredme this thing and I love you.
That's why I've eaten it, outof respect for you.
(01:01:24):
Of course, they wept withbroken to shattered, you know.
Whatever it was, whatever themotivation was yeah, it was
really.
He drove that point home andthey, like you said, they
certainly have never forgottenit.
Yeah, I bet it is.
Speaker 3 (01:01:43):
You carry that with you now into the future.
Speaker 2 (01:01:46):
It is challenging to and it is not a dismissal of an
individual person's ability tounderstand something We've had
so many times I had asked in thepast the thing of insanium and
(01:02:09):
he would say you'll understandlater.
And I hated that.
I've always hated that becauseyou know, I want to understand
my ego now, you know, I'm not animbecile.
I mean, I'm not.
Maybe you know the bright, thebrightest tool in the shed, but
you know, but I am not a buffoon.
I thought to myself.
(01:02:29):
My ego said that, right, I'mnot stupid, give it to me, I
could handle it.
And time and time again thesesort of things happened.
I could say now that he wasabsolutely correct.
The thought that we could graspthe thing that we are yet
(01:02:53):
unable to grasp is ludicrous.
It really is, and so sometimeswe need that faith, to have the
faith in the words of theteacher, to say okay, and when
this is done well, when thestudent and the teacher do their
(01:03:15):
respective jobs, realizationcomes.
Understanding comes,realization comes, understanding
comes, and the things that weresaid that made no sense.
You know, I had asked, sometimesunsung.
In one time I was working witha specific meditation technique
(01:03:36):
and I said he said I won't giveyou a different thing as I wait
a minute, but I like what I had.
He said you like it.
I said wait a minute, but Ilike what I have.
He said you like it.
I said yes, I feel like I'mmaking progress, I like the
method, I'm enjoying it, etcetera, et cetera.
I made a whole list of things.
(01:03:56):
He said yes, you want to gofrom here to, let's say,
Elizabeth and you have a bicycle.
You've had that bicycle, youlike it.
Would you rather put you know,like bedazzle your bicycle.
(01:04:21):
Or I wanna give you a car.
You don't wanna take it?
That was his kind of way of ofcourse right, it's, it's much
more luxurious and gets youthere faster.
So sometimes our egos hold onfor dear life to a thing because
of familiarity, to a thingbecause we've decided all by
(01:04:42):
ourselves, all all on our own,to you know, I'm going to do
this and we don't know.
What we don't know is the pointand we haven't yet.
So sometimes it is absolutelytrue, you will understand later.
(01:05:02):
You will understand later and Ibelieve those who have lived
sufficient amount of life thisrealization comes whether you
are pursuing some spiritualpaths or whatever, or not.
You just realize, ah now, Iknow.
And we have this, you know, whenyou turn 40.
Speaker 3 (01:05:21):
Yeah, I've had a bunch of those.
When I was in high school, mydad was like, don't hang out
with that guy.
I'm like, oh dad, you have nofreaking clue what you're
talking about.
That's right.
And as you get older you'relike, ah, he was 100% right,
that's right Experience.
Speaker 2 (01:05:36):
Yeah, well, I think that'll do.
Yeah, thank you those of youwho are listening, thank you
those of you who have chosen tosupport the podcast financially.
Until next time.
(01:05:59):
We're waiting for topics, Ithink.
Anyway, until next time, takecare of yourselves and each
other.
Speaker 3 (01:06:09):
I'm Milgan Sinim from my heart to yours.
I'm Dr Ruben Lambert.
If you like what you heard,please share it.
Pass it on to others.
Have a great day.
If you didn't understand someof the things that we talked
about here today, don't worry,you'll understand in due time.
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