Hello and welcome back to our study of the Dhammapada.
Today we continue on with verse number 67, which reads as follows, Which means,
That kama which is performed or that kama when performed is not good, which having performed one is burnt or gets incensed in the mind, suffers in the mind.
crying, one who has an asu mukho, one whose face is full of tears, yasa, because of that kamma, vipakang patisevati, so one who, by which, or for which, one who with tears in their eyes cries,
crying with tears in their eyes, but they say that he receives the result of the kamma.
So that kamma, basically, is a Pali way of saying in verse,
that akamma is not good, an action is not good, if once you perform it, it causes you to, it burns you up inside, or it causes you to be, to suffer, if, whereby you receive, because you receive the results, crying with a
Face full of tears or tears in your eyes.
Another one of these great verses.
No, they're all great.
But this one, again, as usual, it outstrips the story, which is a nice story, short and sweet.
The story goes that there was, there were, starts off, there were some robbers, some thieves in Savati and they dug a tunnel and went into a rich person's house and stole all their goods.
and they divided it up but one of the robbers found a especially a stash of especially valuable items coins or gems and he stuck it in his in his coat or in his pants or whatever and hid it from his fellow thieves and so they escaped from the house and they went went
off into the fields and they went to this one farmer's field and they sat there and they distributed up all the loot and they were sitting gloating and then they got up and were ready to leave.
And this one who had kept a package, a purse, aside
As he was getting up to leave, he dropped the purse in the farmer's field and didn't realize it.
And they all got up and went on their way back to their thieves' lair, wherever it is that thieves dwell, or back to their homes.
In the morning, the Buddha
as he was wont to do in the early mornings, he sent out his mind to the whole of the universe, as we've seen him do at other times in this book.
And he thinks about who, in the nearby area or in one of the heavens maybe, or in some far away location,
was ready to hear the Dhamma and who would best profit.
And on this day the owner of the farmer's field came into his mind and he realized that today was the day that this farmer would be just ready to realize the truth and be able to let go of his worldly ways as a farmer and or I'm not sure what happens in the end but he would be able to become enlightened.
Okay, so he realized that he's going to become a sotapana with this teaching.
So he said, well, this is a good reason to go.
It'll also make a good example, and we can make a verse out of it, and eventually, 2,500 years later, someone will be reading this from a book.
So this was perhaps not all going through the Buddha's mind but to some extent it was the idea that this was a worthwhile thing to do.
So in the morning he set out with Ananda on alms round and passed right by this farmer's field and the farmer was out in his field tilling the soil or doing whatever it is that farmers do and
The farmer saw him and was quite impressed, of course, by the greatness of the Buddha wandering through the fields, carrying his robe and bowl with his eyes downcast, walking majestically like the king of righteousness.
and he went to the Buddha and he paid respect to him and then went back to plowing his field and the Buddha didn't say anything.
Normally, often when people would come to pay respect to the Buddha, he would reply by giving them some teaching or at least acknowledging them.
On this occasion he didn't acknowledge the farmer.
He stood and let the farmer pay respect to him and worship him and so on and then just went on his way and the farmer was, I guess, a little bit confused and so he was kind of watching the Buddha go and as the Buddha walked away he looked over into the field and he said to Ananda, Oh Ananda, do you see that poisonous snake?
And Ananda looked and he said, Oh indeed
That's a terrible, awful snake.
And the farmer stood up when he heard this.
When they walked away, he walked over to where they were looking, creeping over with his stick, getting ready to take on this fearsome snake.
And he sees the purse lying there where the Buddha and Ananda had looked.
And he looks at the purse and he doesn't get it.
He doesn't quite understand what the meaning is here.
But he opens the purse and he sees all these valuable things inside.
And he realizes that, whoa, there's something going on here.
He digs a hole and he puts the purse into the hole and covers it up and says, well, I'll figure out what to do with this later.
I don't really know what to do with that right now.
But finding valuables on your property, he figured he had to do something.
And he went back to his work.
Meanwhile, the authorities were busy doing their inspection of this rich person's property and they actually managed to track the thieves to the farmer's field.
Then they saw the tracks coming and then dispersing, but then they also saw the farmer's tracks.
coming from where the farmer had been digging and going right to where the thieves had been meeting.
And then they saw it veering off a little bit.
They went there and they found the stash and they dug it up and they found the purse.
And then they followed the tracks back to the farmer's house.
And so of course they suspected that the farmer was in fact a thief and they caught him up and they took him out and they were going to take him to jail or maybe beat him or I don't remember what they were going to do, maybe even kill him.
In those times justice was swift but not very just.
And so they took him, they were taking him through the streets and as they were walking he starts shaking his head and muttering to himself, he says,
Ananda, do you see that poisonous snake?
Yes, venerable sir.
What a terrible snake.
He's shaking his head and just muttering to himself.
And the guards are looking at him like he's crazy.
And they say, what are you muttering to yourself?
And he says, if you take me to the king, I'll tell you.
And they hear that they think something's going on here, so they take him to the king.
And he says, and they tell the king, they say, this man, we caught him red-handed.
He had buried this stolen goods, so obviously he was the one who, he was a thief.
And now he's saying something, he's evoking the name of the Buddha, an Ananda.
And we thought this was worthy of some investigation, Your Majesty.
And the king turns to the farmer and says, what's the meaning of this?
Why are you saying to yourself, oh, Ananda, you see that poisonous snake?
Yes, venerable sir, what a terrible snake.
And so he tells him the story.
He says, I'm not a thief.
And he tells it to him, what happened and what the Buddha had said.
And the king is intrigued by this.
Something very interesting has happened.
Why did the Buddha take the time to go to this farmer and what is the lesson that's being taught here?
So he takes the farmer and he goes to the Buddha and he asks the Buddha, he says, is this true?
Did you walk by this farmer's field and happen to make mention of a poisonous snake?
And the Buddha said, yes indeed I did.
And then he spoke this verse.
He says a person should be very careful about their deeds, that they don't come back to bite them like a poisonous snake.
And so this is the story.
But as usual, the verse says so much more.
The verse points to any act and it brings up the idea that an act is only as good as the result.
And this is really the problem because it's hard for us to tell what is going to be the result of our actions.
And we often don't relate the actions with the result.
we think that something is going to bring us happiness and in fact it often does bring us temporary pleasure or relief from suffering so here he has this probably inside has this desire for the treasure and so he buries it thinking get excited you know thinking that this is something somehow this situation is going to bring me some sort of happiness whereas with the buddha and ananda
having spent a lot of time looking at the nature of the world and the nature of desires, were quite clear in their minds that this is indeed a poisonous snake.
I often, in a narrow context, I often use this verse to talk about the evils of money, specifically for monks.
But on a larger scale you can see why it was that the Buddha enjoined the monks not to use money, because it can be a real poisonous snake.
tend to get a little bit emotional or a lot emotional when money matters are involved.
So if it had been a bunch of manure that he had hidden, that someone had stolen and he had hidden it, it may not have evoked such an emotive response and caused such trouble for him, caused him to be beaten and dragged through the streets.
But specifically for money, there's something very poisonous about it.
But what the Buddha is saying here in his verse, in his teaching, he's saying to be aware of the results.
And as I said, on a worldly level this is often difficult.
And in many cases we can't be sure what the results of our actions are going to be.
But we never really focus on that in Buddhism because we consider that the world is mind-made anyway or reality is a product of our past anyway.
It's a product of our actions and of our intentions.
So if it happens that we are unjustly accused of something, we often figure that there is some sort of justice to it, because we've somehow managed to get ourselves in this situation.
We've somehow managed to get here and now, and there's no innocence there.
It's like when you enter into a contract, and you're bound by the conditions of the contract, no matter what comes.
In the same way where we've entered into this contract willingly, we've willingly been born as human beings, which is why the Buddha said actually birth is also suffering.
Because when you're born, it's like entering into a contract.
If you didn't enter into the contract, you wouldn't be forced to abide by the conditions.
And it's these conditions that often cause suffering.
But I think in a Buddhist sense we have to focus on the karmic aspects of this verse, like the intentional aspects of it.
That this farmer couldn't have known specifically what was going to happen when he took that.
He may have even, it doesn't say in the verse, but we can give him the benefit of the doubt and
imagine that to the best of his wisdom he thought this was a good idea that somehow he was going to return this money even or he had no intention of taking it no desire for it probably wasn't the case and so we could say that it actually wasn't the bad deed that he did potentially we don't know the intentions behind it although as I said with money there's always the problem people get emotional and
And there was really no need for him to bury it unless he was somehow concerned by it.
But this is the point of, this is the reason why Ananda and the Buddha, especially the Buddha, were quite clear on the dangers of having anything to do with something like that because of the amount of desire that's involved.
And so we focus on the intentions here, then we can ask ourselves how to cultivate
an understanding of what is going to make us suffer in the future.
What deeds are we going to perform?
What deeds, having performed, are we going to weep and cry and beat our breasts and anuttapatti, which really means to burn because of it, to get heated in the mind, to get stressed in the mind.
And even still, for most people it's difficult to know.
It's difficult for us to be clear what deeds having performed are going to lead us to suffering.
And the problem is the act and the results are so far removed from each other in many cases.
So you might indulge in something, eat lots of ice cream, or have a romantic engagement.
Romantic engagement is a good example because it often
ends in tears.
In fact, the more passionate it is, the more likely you could say it's going to end in tears.
If two people are relaxed in their relationship and comfortable in their own individuality, then any breakup is not likely to be as devastating.
But if it's passionate and if there's a great amount of, in fact, pleasure involved, then there's much more likely to be a great amount of pain and suffering.
And so this is why when
relationships break up or people pass away or move on or whatever there's a great amount of face full of tears
But we can't see it because there's so much pleasure.
In fact, it's even worse than that because we start out with pleasure because we have suffering.
Generally, the reason why people want pleasure is because there's something lacking, there's a feeling of agitation or upset in their mind, so they want something to ease that, to appease that, to make them happy again.
And so they undertake something, in this case a romantic engagement.
And it brings them lots and lots of pleasure.
And so they become accustomed to the pleasure.
And that pleasure directly leads to their suffering because of the addiction.
So then the person changes or their expectations are not met and leaves or they leave or they fight or something.
And there's a great amount of suffering.
Now that suffering is exactly what's going to lead them back
into a relationship, or seeking out the same sort of relationship.
Because it was the same reason that got them into it, and so it's a deadly cycle.
The craving for food is another one.
When you crave for the food, this is a kind of a suffering, so you go and get food and you feel happy.
You enjoy the taste or you enjoy the sensation of being full.
and creates this attachment to it, and then when it's gone, you suffer again, and you go out and get it again.
And we do this with all sorts of pleasurable things.
So, in fact, it's even worse than just being disconnected, that they're actually responsible for each other.
The pleasure and the pain.
The pleasure is responsible to bring us disappointment, dissatisfaction.
The dissatisfaction leads us to want to get more of it.
We have to quickly go and get more.
And so the actions are directly responsible.
for the suffering, but the suffering is also directly responsible for our desire for more.
And so it's a terrible vicious cycle.
And so this is why, or this is where in Buddhism meditation comes in.
This is why meditation is so important.
If you think in a worldly sense, how would you know a certain action like bringing a bunch of coins is going to have bad results?
You'll know from experience.
So there are so many different situations that you can't sit down and consider logically what's going to be the outcome.
But with experience you can see how people react and you can see what
what are probable outcomes and with a lot of experience in a worldly sense you can live your life fairly stably so you know not to bury if you've been beaten and dragged to the streets for example you know not to bury a bunch of coins because
probably people are going to get upset and you're going to be accused of something you didn't do and so on and so on.
You should be very careful.
And this is why, of course, if this happened today, people would often go directly to the authorities.
If some bank sack from a bank or something was found in a farmer's field, the farmer would right away, hopefully, go to the authorities because he wouldn't want to be unduly accused.
So, the same principle applies for meditation, applies for the intentional activities of the mind.
Meditation is
for the direct purpose, for the soul purpose, the main purpose of meditation, is experience.
We're trying to understand.
We're not trying to change.
We're not trying to stop by ourselves from doing any number of things.
We're trying to understand and gain experience about how the mind works.
reality works, how cause and effect works, what leads to what.
When you want something, what does that lead to?
It leads to clinging.
When you cling to something, what does that lead to?
It leads to chasing.
When you chase something, what does that lead to?
It leads to suffering.
It leads to not getting eventually, or it leads to the stress of having to work, or so on.
and as a result leads to suffering.
What does suffering lead to?
Suffering leads to wanting again.
And so you see this and eventually you get tired of it.
You're able to change your habits through experience.
You're able to see what the Buddha said that indeed it's not good.
That kama is indeed not good.
If you do it and it causes you suffering, it's indeed not good.
If you read the verse, it's actually something you can say, well, of course I know that.
If something causes me suffering, I shouldn't do it.
But this is the realization that the Buddha is talking about.
He's talking about what we need to do.
We need to realize that which the Buddha has realized.
He's realized that
that deed is not worth doing.
That deed brings me suffering.
He's pointing out that for most of us, we don't know this.
Most of us, or we know the principle, but we don't know that these things are causing us suffering.
He's saying,
you're doing this because you don't understand that it's causing you suffering.
Because it's not worth doing.
If you knew that it was suffering, why would you do it?
And so he's saying, when we do things that cause us suffering, we have to be clear that we would have been better off to not perform those actions, to not get involved, to not get caught up in those things that cause us suffering.
And so it's a lesson really for us to continue in meditation, to dedicate ourselves to meditation, to focus on this idea of acquiring experience, acquiring an understanding of how the mind and the body works.
When you sit and you watch your mind, you see one thing leading to another.
When you see your desires, you see your aversions, you see your sufferings, and you see what causes what.
and you learn to relax your mind and ease up this tension that comes from wanting and needing and that comes from aversion and frustration and greed and anger and all these pushes and pulls that exist in the mind and we see that we are causing ourselves suffering and we realize that indeed this is the point we should stop doing those things that cause us suffering
And the point, the problem is that often we don't know that they're causing us suffering.
We don't realize that they're going to cause us suffering.
So as the Buddha said, before you do something you should be clear that it's a good thing to do.
When you're doing something you should be clear that it's a good thing to do.
And after you finished it, you should be clear that it was a good thing to have done.
And if not, you should quickly change.
You should have the mindfulness to be clearly aware of those things that you do.
Without mindfulness, we're easily caught up in performing bad deeds of act, speech and mind and caught up.
And all the way through until it leads to great, can lead to great suffering and stress for us.
So that's the lesson.
It's a simple lesson, but another one of those things that reminds us of the inevitability of cause and effect, that you can't escape your karma.
and better to not do these deeds at all not to just hope that it doesn't come to us but better is it not to do and indeed it's not well done if it leads you to suffering everything is judged by the result it has so thank you for tuning in this is another verse of the Dhammapada wishing you all true peace, happiness and freedom from suffering