Is there any way for us to better understand how good acts bring good results?
It seems sometimes that people who do good don't reap a noticeable benefit.
Is it subtle, immaterial, etc.?
The only way to understand karma is through the practice of meditation.
The only way to appreciate it properly is through the practice of meditation.
It's not some magical thing whereby you kill someone and you get killed, or you give someone food and you get food, or so on.
A good deed... I've talked about this before.
The Buddha rejected the concept of karma.
We have this idea that the Buddha taught the law of karma.
The Buddha himself even said he taught the law of karma.
But if you look at what really went on,
what the Buddha really did is he rejected karma totally, completely rejected karma it's not fair to say that because he redefined it but what I mean by that is Hinduism had this concept that an act was in and of itself good or bad and it still does
I believe Hinduism, Brahmanism, the Vedas have this idea that ritual activity brings benefits.
There were even the beliefs that ritual activity was to be done without the idea that it brings benefit.
But not doing it would be unthought of.
There was no idea that there's a benefit that comes from it.
It's just it is done.
You do the rituals.
So the question of why you do them
There's no why.
It's just done.
So this was karma.
Karma was things to be done and things that were bad.
Killing someone was bad because of the physical act.
Eating certain foods is bad karma.
Eating meat, for example, this idea that eating meat is bad karma.
The Buddha rejected all this.
He said, Something like that.
that he said, you know, what really goes on, what is really done is not a bodily action.
What is really done, the act that is done is the intention.
And so he didn't reject it, as I said.
He rejected what we would normally think of as karma.
He said, what is really done, the act that is really done is a mental one.
And that's where karma exists.
So,
When we talk about the law of karma in Buddhism, we're not talking about acts of body.
We're not talking about people doing good things and getting a good thing come to them.
We're talking about the changes that occur in one's mind based on one's intentions.
So when one gives rise to an unwholesome intention, when a mind state that is associated with greed or anger or delusion,
then it will give rise to suffering.
If one gives rise to a state of mind that is based on non-greed, non-anger, non-delusion, wisdom, renunciation and kindness or love,
then it brings happiness, it brings peace.
Now, the only way you can verify this is through looking at these states, through watching them, but it's very quick actually.
If you take a meditation course for three days or five, you know, say five days,
I would say even three days.
If you do three days of intensive meditation, you'll begin to see the workings of karma.
You can enter into, if you're with proper guidance, in about three days of insight meditation, you can understand what we call the ability to see the causes and effects, knowledge of cause and effect.
which is karma, the ability to see that when the mind gives rise to this state, this state has to follow.
Once you start to look at greed, look at anger, look at delusion, you can't look at delusion, but looking at greed and anger,
you will come to see the suffering associated with them.
As soon as the greed arises, there's tension in the mind.
Anger arises, there's suffering in the mind.
These are associated states.
And you see how it changes the mind, how it dulls the mind, how it reduces the clarity of the mind.
And as a result...
And not only the mind, but it disrupts reality.
So the whole world around you is affected.
As you get more angry, you tend to act.
For example, people who are angry tend to be less careful.
So people who trip and fall or hit their heads or cut themselves or so on, it can often be because of the karma of cultivating anger in the past.
So we say hurting yourself is caused by karma.
But on a basic level, it's just because you're less careful.
A person who is greedy will be less indulgent.
So a person who is stingy, for example, people who can't give up and can't let go, who try to steal things from others or take things from others,
will as a result be constantly unhappy, constantly dissatisfied and as a result you will see that will eventually become less
less accepting of peace and happiness and will engage in stressful activities.
People who are stingy will be less likely to find
find happiness themselves.
Generalization, there are many different types of people.
But they will be, they will have, as a result of their state of mind, will have less peace, obviously because of their general, in a general sense, the desire in the mind will make them less peaceful because they'll always be thinking about this.
As soon as they sit down, their mind will jump away to the object of their desire.
If it's a
another human being that you're in love with, you say, you obviously can't meditate, you're always thinking about this person, for example, if it's food, then you're always thinking about the food, if it's computer games, then you're always thinking about computer games, and so on.
I remember I used to play computer games in it.
I tried meditating when I was younger, but I realized I had gotten to such a point where I couldn't even sit alone in the room because I would be constantly thinking about the computer, going to the computer, playing computer games.
Anyway, so yeah, meditate.
Best way to understand karma, how good acts bring results, is to practice meditation.