June 11 -Day 7...Karma -Delson Armstrong

Karma is today's topic. What is karma? Karma simply means action. And the way the Buddha has described karma, very simply put, is that karma is intention. And so what he means by that is, if you're walking down the road and you don't see where your foot lands, and it lands on an insect and your foot crushes the insect.

What was your intention there? Was it to kill the insect? It happened to be that your foot landed on the insect's body. There's a reason why the Buddha said that karma is intention, because there were other philosophies and other viewpoints that were there around the time of the Buddha, different kinds of viewpoints related to karma. Some people said that there is no such thing as karma. Everything is random. This universe is random. There is no meaning in giving and what is offered and what is sacrificed.

And this is a very sort of nihilistic standpoint. It's saying that, yeah, it doesn't matter what we do. It doesn't matter. And another kind of view said that there's no such thing as karma. There's no such thing as religious rites and rituals. Why do we need to meditate? The only thing we know are these senses and the body.

So let's just eat, drink, and be merry. It's a very materialist viewpoint. And then there was this other view that we are eternal. But what is it that is eternal? The seven eternal principles, which are the elements that make up the body, the breath, something akin to a soul, the essence of mind, things like this, that are, according to that view, eternal. And so killing a being has no real demerit. It has no real effect. It's fine, because we are all eternal anyway. And the Buddha said, well, actually, there are things that are impermanent and liable to suffering and liable to decay. And if we harm a living being, then we are producing very unwholesome karma.

There was another view which was, or has been, the view of the Jains, Jainism. Jainism is a philosophy, a religion, a lifestyle that's still followed in some parts of India. And Jainism has two components. There's the lay people who make the majority of it, and they're all very wealthy and very generous and prosperous, or at least that's how it seems.

And the monastic community, they're supported by the lay community, and they have their own version of the Eightfold Path and their own idea of what the world looks like, and that there is a soul, but it goes through a process of karmic accumulation that needs to be dusted off. It's like we collect karmic dust, and no matter what we do, we're collecting at all times.

So in the case of us mistakenly stomping or landing on that insect, according to the Jain view, we have committed a bad karma. And we accumulate the dust of that. And so our process, in the Jain view, is to cleanse the soul of its karmas through ascetic practices, through making ourselves uncomfortable, through going through difficult situations on purpose. So oftentimes you'll see Jain monks. If you travel around those parts of India, like Bodh Gaya and Rajagaha and Nalanda and these places, you will see Jain monks as well, because there are some Jain monuments and religious places of significance. And there are two kinds of Jain monks. There are the Digambara and the Shvetambara.

Digambara means sky clad. Digambara is the sky. And it means that they go completely nude. So you'll be sitting in the bus on your tour seeing the different Buddha sights, and then you're going, and all of a sudden you see this naked guy with a bowl, just walking around. And then there's the other one, which are the Shvetambara, the white clad. So they wear white robes.

But the Jain view is that in order for us to become pure, we have to go through a process of ascetic practices so that we can deal with those karmic effects. So that's one view of karma. Then another view of karma is that it's nothing but karma. Everything is just karma. It's like fatalism. We are predestined to experience everything that we experience. The analogy that's used is it's like we have a ball of yarn and we unroll it, and that's our life, the ball of yarn that just unrolls until we have the end.

And so it doesn't make sense to meditate. It doesn't make sense to do anything. When we're supposed to be enlightened, we'll be enlightened. When we're supposed to experience this, we'll experience this. Whatever it is that we're supposed to experience, it's already pre-written. It's already predestined. So why do anything at all? These were the different views about karma.

And what the Buddha said is, let's just simplify everything and understand that it is our intention first and foremost. Our intention of how we act. So when we say intention, it's what drives what we think, or what we contemplate, or what we reflect on. It reflects on our words and on our actions, what we choose to do. Choice is provided for us in every given moment. Things arise due to prior causes and conditions.

Those prior causes and conditions can be karma, but not necessarily karma. This is very important to understand. What's going on over there? When we have an intention, that is arising as a reaction or response to the causes and conditions that are playing out in the form of an experience. And those intentions are dependent upon the karmic formations that arise.

If you want to know what kind of formations are arising, understand the quality of your intentions. Wholesome intentions arise from wholesome formations. Unwholesome intentions arise from unwholesome formations. What do we mean by old karma? Old karma is vipaka, v-i-p-a-k-a, vipaka. This is the technical name for the old karma. And this is the passive sense in which we are experiencing the fruits of our prior intended actions.

And so what we choose to do now has a direct effect in the future, whether it's in the next moment, the subsequent moment, or a future moment. And that is dependent upon whether there is identification with that process, whether there's craving in that process. There is a Sutta called the Bhavasutta. It's Anguttara Nikaya 3.66 and 3.67. And in there, the Bhavasutta, which is all about becoming, the Buddha says there are these three things.

You can think of it in this way: consciousness is the seed, karma is the field, and craving is the moisture. So consciousness here is our awareness. Consciousness here can mean our life, however you want to put it. Karma as the field is everything we're experiencing right now. All of samsara is karma. Us coming into this reality, into this experience, is part of karma.

And when we have craving, what do we mean by craving? The mind that says, I don't like this, I like this, or I am this. There is an I behind it. There is a me, mine, or myself behind it. When such actions are taken from that sense of I, a sense of doership, then you are beholden to future karma.

So when the craving goes away, that means the moisture is gone, then what remains is that consciousness will not bear fruit into a new existence, or will not bear fruit into a new arising of karma. So craving has to be cut off. And this is what we were referring to yesterday, where mindfulness is the gatekeeper. Mindfulness watches the quality of the experience, whether it's pleasant, unpleasant, or neutral.

Mindfulness is the guard on post, keeping at bay any kind of craving, clinging, or becoming. And every time we produce new karma, at some point, if the causes and conditions are ripe, they will arise as an effect, as the vipaka. So you can think of karma, the technical word karma, as the active sense of producing new actions, and vipaka as the passive sense of inheriting the old karma. When we say we are inheritors of our karma, what do we mean by that? You say that in the morning, don't you?

When you take the precepts and so on. What do we mean by that? I am an inheritor of my karma. It means that I am beholden to my actions. Whatever I have done in the past with intentions, whether those intentions are well-meaning or ill-meaning, at some point or another I'm beholden to them. This is why the Eightfold Path is seen as the way to cease karma, because immediately it starts with right view. First you have to understand that action leads to consequence.

That is right view. That craving leads to suffering. That following the Eightfold Path leads to the cessation of suffering. And then the second aspect is right intention, the second part of the Eightfold Path. Right intention. What do you start off with right away? Nekkhamma. Letting go. What are we letting go of? We are letting go of the me, the I, the myself.

What do we mean by that when we say this is not me, this is not mine, this is not myself? What does it mean when we're doing this process of so-called self-abnegation? What it means is we are having a different perspective on what is being experienced. We realize that this is all a process. Even the observation, the observer, the experience of observing, is a process.

Nothing is static in the conditioned experience. So we choose to let go of the control. I said this on day one or day two, whenever. We choose to let go of the control for a certain outcome, the control for a certain desired experience. And we have non-ill will and non-cruelty. Very important. We cannot gloss over this. It's so important for the understanding of karma.

When you hold any kind of animosity for another being, there, right there and then, is karma. Because your intentions are ill. Your intentions are filled with ill will. You have animosity around a person. How do you experience that karma? First and foremost, you're going to feel terrible. That's the immediate karmic effect. You're going to be fighting with all of these thoughts about the other person. You're giving them free real estate in your mind with your animosity towards them.

And that's causing you suffering immediately. They don't even have to do anything to you. Your animosity towards them is the immediate vipaka. I hate that person. Why do they say that to me? Why do they act like that? Why do they look at me like that? All of that is just prone towards suffering. That's why non-ill will is so important, and of course non-cruelty, not adding to the suffering of another being, because that kind of action will have a direct effect on our mind state.

it will create agitation, it will create craving, it will create ill will, it will create all kinds of distractions in the mind, lack of discernment, lack of mindfulness. And then part of that is also keeping the precepts, which we've talked about over and over. But there's an important reason why we keep emphasizing this, because the whole point of keeping the precepts, if you look at it, is to cultivate a space in the mind that is non-reactive. Reactivity is karma. Reaction is karma.

When we pause and reflect and respond, we're giving enough pause for that karma, when it arises, to be there. Don't have to do anything with it. And then we respond to it in a way that is rooted in right view, rooted in right intention, rooted in the Eightfold Path. And the Eightfold Path, as the Buddha has said, is the way leading to the cessation of karma.

When he says that, what does he mean? He means it in two ways: the cessation of old karma and the total non-arising of new karma. So what do we mean by old karma? Old karma is, as we've said in the links of dependent origination, ignorance, formations, consciousness, mentality, materiality, sixth sense basis, contact and feeling. In order for us to experience karma, it must be experienced through one or more of the six sense bases. That's how old karma manifests, when the causes and conditions are right.

How we choose to take that? If we take it personally, if we identify with it, if we react to it, if we do anything to try to change it, to manipulate it, to control it, to defend ourselves against it, all of these things we are adding to the fuel of craving. Craving and clinging and becoming are the ingredients for that new karma to manifest, or in another way, to continue to propagate that old karma.

When we talk about karma arising, how does it arise? It arises when the causes and conditions are right. What do we mean by that? Here is a simple analogy. You can think of karma as different kinds of seeds. There's a watermelon seed, an apple seed and an orange seed. So the seeds are different, which means the karma in itself is different, the intention in itself is different. And let's say with the watermelon seed you had some level of sunlight and the soil was okay and you had some nutrition. With the orange seed you had excellent sunlight, excellent amounts of water, excellent amounts of nutrition in the soil. Did I say orange seed? The apple seed has no nutrition, no sunlight. In fact the soil is, you can't even call it soil. So what is that? Those are the causes and conditions. In the case of the watermelon seed, it will grow at the pace that it has been engineered to grow, as per the information stored in the seed and how it germinates. So based on the typology of the seed, it will germinate.

But if the causes and conditions are not adequate, it may not grow to a healthy amount. In the case of the orange seed, everything is there. All the conditions, all the causes and conditions are there. And because of the nature of how it grows, it will grow, whether it's slowly or quickly. And then with the right amount of nutrition, water and sunlight, it will grow to its fullest.

In the case of the apple seed, yes, it has its nature of growing and germinating in the way it will, based on the information that is packed into that seed. However, there's no soil, there's no sunlight, there's no water, which means no causes and conditions are there for it to grow. This is how karma works. Our intentions are one thing in terms of how we intend to act, how we intend to think, how we intend to speak.

And the vipaka of that, the fruition of that, the fruit of that as old karma, will arise when the right amount of sunlight, the right amount of soil and the right amount of water and nutrition are present, for that seed to grow. And by the nature of the karma, meaning by the nature of that intention, it will quickly arise, or it will arise over time, or it will arise in a slower amount of time, or whatever it is. But if there's no causes and conditions, no matter if that seed is going to grow quickly, it will not, because it doesn't have something to be nourished by, for its complete germination.

This is how karma works. When we say that there's karma, we may think that karma is all that there is. But that can be a problematic view, because if we attribute everything to karma, it is almost nearly identical to the view of fatalism, where we don't have control over anything. We are born a certain way, oh, that's my karma. I have so many resources, oh, that's just my karma.

There's no what's known as purushartha. There's no self-effort. And when I say self-effort, obviously, I'm not talking about a personalized effort. I'm talking about having initiative. Nothing wrong with having initiative. That is chanda, wholesome desire. On a broader spectrum, we can think of karma as the old karma is known as sanchita karma. Sanchita means storehouse, a warehouse of various potential karmas that can arise.

And then there is agami karma. Agami means to return. Karma that causes us to return back to this world. That's why when you become a stream enterer, you close off certain agami karma. Namely, the karma that could relate to an existence in the hell realm, in the hungry ghost realm, or the animal realm. And as you progress, more and more of that agami karma is destroyed, is rooted out, until when you're fully awakened, and that completely is gone.

But you still have to deal with what's known as prarabdha karma. And prarabdha karma is karma that is allotted to you for this life. Not necessarily that you have to experience all of it. You know, it doesn't mean that to be fully awakened, you have to extinguish all your karma. That is, that's going to take you a long time.

A long time. What it means is that the storehouse of sanchita karma is now evened out when you become fully awakened. You don't need to deal with all of the past karma, necessarily. What you have to deal with is the karma that's already in motion, that was there, that was released. In the same way, when you release an arrow, you can't call the arrow back.

And that is what is known as prarabdha. This is your destiny, as it were. As an aside, it's so interesting. George Lucas, creator of Star Wars, obviously studied very deeply the ancient Indian philosophies, because you look at the different characters and how they reflect their understanding of karma. When Luke Skywalker first duels Darth Vader, Darth Vader says, 'It is your destiny.' Right? And so he has a very fatalistic point of view.

And then you have someone like Qui-Gon Jinn in the prequels who says, we trust in the living force, which means we allow things to unfold as they were, right? And we have some skin in the game. We have intentionality behind that. So we become mindful of the present, that is the living force. I don't know how many of you are as nerdish as I am with Star Wars, but that's just a side. So the understanding of karma as destiny is... Yeah? I'm just a movie about Star Wars. Yes? I was watching episode 2, the entire stretch back, and Yoda says, luminous beings we are, not this gross matter. Yeah.

Luminous beings we are, not this crude matter. Yeah, exactly. And this process of prarabdha, which is predestined, it's not predestined. It's all of the potentials that could possibly arise in this lifetime. Take the case of the Buddha. Now, when he was the Bodhisattva, you had a sage who predicted that he would either be a wheel-turning monarch or a great sage, a Buddha.

And in some instances, you had astrologers looking at his chart and saying, indeed, that is possible, that he would be a wheel-turning monarch or a great Buddha. And everything in his life that had to happen in order for him to become a Buddha was there. All the causes and conditions were there, likewise for him to be a wheel-turning monarch. But it was due to what potentials arose that led to him becoming a Buddha. Yet, it also required his own efforts, his own efforts to activate that process.

So that it ripened to the point that he became fully awakened, and now he was beholden to any other karma that needed to be experienced that happened prior to his full awakening. So for a fully awakened being, they are still beholden to karma, but that karma is the things that they did or acted upon with intention prior to full awakening. So the only difference is no new agami karma, no new karma to add to the bank balance that needs to be experienced for you to come back, return back to samsara and experience the vipaka, the fruition of that karma. In Indian astrology, it's very interesting. Yes?

What prevents the new, old karma from arising? What prevents it from? From arising. The new karma or the old karma? No, the new, old... What prevents old karma that wasn't set in motion before they became awakened from arising? Because what if the causes and conditions for that karma came about? Can you say that again, please? You have the old karma that was set in motion before awakening. Yes. And the old karma that wasn't. Yes.

What prevents the old karma that wasn't, some of it, from being activated after awakening? Because the soil wasn't there. The soil, the water, and the sunlight wasn't there. The right causes and conditions weren't there for that old karma to be activated. Because of the awakening? No, what I'm saying is, in the case of a fully awakened being, they will still be beholden to the old karma. But not all of it will have to be experienced.

Only that which needs to be experienced in this lifetime, which is your so-called destiny. And anything else beyond that will be dependent upon causes and conditions. For new karma, no new karma. Like that bank balance is gone. So what prevents it is that there's just not the right causes and conditions for it to be there. That's it. Like in the case of Angulimala, you know, he kills a lot of people.

And how many people is it? 999? And the Buddha sees he's about to go and kill his mother. He realizes that is, meaning Angulimala is going to go and kill Angulimala's mother. And as the whole process goes, he realizes that Angulimala is going to commit an extremely terrible amount of karma. Because by killing one's own parents, it creates such a detrimental psychological state that it is immediately effective leading you to a lower realm.

So what he does is he prevents him from doing that. And the whole sutta is about him just showing Angulimala how fearless he is because there's nothing to be afraid of against him. And Angulimala kind of realizes his misdeeds and then is ordained. He decides to become a Buddhist monk, and then he attains arahatship. Once he attains arahatship, when he goes around, people throw stones at him. They attack him. And he goes and complains to the Buddha, and he says, this is what's happening. And the Buddha says, bear it, bear it, because that's your karma.

You know, the stuff that you did prior to full awakening, you have to experience it. Now, the other story is Moggallana. Moggallana is beaten to death. He tries to evade, as much as he can, the attacks from these rival groups of wanderers. And they attack him. And they finally catch up to him, and he loses his psychic powers because he has to experience that karma.

And when he does... By the way, he's an arahant at this point. So he's fully awakened. And what he realizes, this karma is for, in a previous lifetime, at some point, whenever that was in a previous lifetime, he had killed his parents. And that led him to go into the hell realms. But the stain of that, the effect of that, was still lingering.

and he had to experience the arising of that karma. And that was sort of his, that was part of his life story, so to speak. That was part of his, for example, the years of our life, they say, how long you live is also determined by previous karma. Your longevity can be, but it can also change based on causes and conditions. You might eat healthy, you might do all kinds of things, and it might have some level of effect on that. So I was talking about, in Indian astrology, they understand it to be a snapshot. Our chart, our birth chart, our natal chart, is a snapshot of what kind of life potentially this being will lead. It has nothing to do with whether they are going to be married, whether they are going to be wealthy, or predicting what's going to happen next week, reading the horoscope daily or whatever it is. It's nothing to do with that. It's a snapshot of all of the karmic possibilities that this person, this being, has when they're born.

And so Indian astrology is so vast in its array of knowledge that you have so many different charts for a being. 60 different kinds of charts that it'll show you. At this period of time you have a potential for this happening. At this period of time you have a potential of this happening. And I can attest to this in my own life. I've seen it for myself, that when they say that in this period of time, from this age to this age, these are the sicknesses you may deal with, these are the things that you may have to go through, these are the kinds of suffering you might have to go through, these are the kinds of gains you have to go through. What is all of that? That's the karma that is allotted potentially for you to experience in this life. Does that mean I have to go through all of it? Does it mean that a person has to go through all of it?

Not necessary. It's just a library of possibilities that can happen. And if the causes and conditions are there, then they will happen. Yeah. That's a good question. Is karma by definition always negative? No. It's also positive, of course. I just said, you know, the gains, different kinds of gains, spiritual gains, material gains, relationships, growth, all kinds of things. That's also part of karma. And that's determined by the past actions that we've produced, whether it's in this lifetime or in a previous lifetime.

Why are you guys asking all these questions now? Let me finish my talk. You're the last. Ask the question, I go ahead. You didn't crave after the good karma, but it's going to still keep you in samsara. That's what I was saying: the good karma is one thing, but identifying with the good karma leads to further renewal in samsara.

So you have to go from unwholesome to wholesome, to letting go of even identifying and taking personal the wholesome. So if a mind has been predominantly unwholesome, we help to recondition the unwholesome to the wholesome. And then we also see that there might be conceit, where, oh, I'm a great meditator, oh, I'm a great person, oh, I keep the precepts. All of this pride can come up where we compare with others, and that can still keep us in samsara.

So we don't have to let go of the wholesome karma. We just have to let go of identifying with it. So whatever arises, we just see. That's what I'm saying: always see whatever arises as best as you can as an impersonal process. That way you have less reactivity to the experience, which will help you to prevent the further production of new karma.

Anyway, so what I was saying is there are all of these potentials that you can experience. And these can be determined by previous choices that you made in a past life. It is so sophisticated, this kind of so-called astrology, that you can even look into what was it that caused the death of the previous life. And what are the lessons to be learned in this present life? What are the karmas that need to be experienced in order for the person to learn from their attachments in a previous life?

It's a very intricate system, but it's all there. But again, I'm just saying it's not predestination. It's not something that you have to experience. You have to be able to have self-effort. You have to be able to make the effort, whether it's in meditation, keeping the precepts, and developing wisdom. So now we've talked about karma. The other thing I want to say is we were saying a little earlier that there are those who view that karma is everything.

But there is a sutta called the Mulasivaka Sutta, in which the Buddha addresses this. And there's a reason why he addresses this. Because the people who say, oh, it's just my karma, don't do anything with their lives. They just go on with life saying, I just accept what's going on. That's not going to get you to developing wisdom. That's not going to get you to understanding compassion. That's not going to get you to liberating the mind. It's only going to get you to just full-on acceptance, and that's it.

You still have to make the effort to understand things. You still have to make the effort to deal with the unpleasant sensations and the pleasant sensations in a way that doesn't create or produce new reactions. So what the Buddha said is, if we attribute everything to karma, then it's also unfair on our part towards another person. If we say, this person has a disease because they did something in a previous life, how can you know that? How can we truly know that?

It's a lack of compassion to even think in that way. Because it makes more sense to deal with what you are born with and solve the problem right there and then. It doesn't make sense to say, oh, this is just because of my karma. What are you going to do about it, if anything? Can you do something about it? So that's why the Buddha said, it's not just karma, it's also these other factors.

He talked about the imbalance in the humors. What are the humors? We're talking about bile, phlegm, and wind, which is, in that case, the Ayurvedic understanding of pitta, kapha, and vata. These determine the kind of body that you have and the body that is prone to certain kinds of defects, deficiencies, and diseases. And so he said that could be because of the kind of food you eat, that could be because of the environment, that could be because of a genetic disorder.

For us to say that that's karmic in nature is unfair towards us or towards another person. The real question to ask is, okay, I have this issue or I have this disease, what can I do about it? Is there anything I can do about it here in this present moment? The other thing the Buddha says is the climate. We're not in control over what kind of climate we are born into, necessarily, or what kind of climate we live in on a day-to-day basis. It is whatever it is.

Our environment, he says, is also part of that process. And then he says, accidents can happen. You have an accident. You can't say that that's karma, necessarily. Somebody was not looking, and they had an accident. Or you are driving safely, and somebody was not looking on the other side. And they crashed into your car. It's an accident. It's a mistake. It wasn't intentional.

And the other thing he says is assault. That's the word he uses. Attacking. Somebody attacks you. Assaults you. That's not because of your karma, necessarily. That's just something that happens. The person goes, snaps, and assaults you. You didn't cause that, you didn't aggravate them, you didn't provoke them, that person decided to assault you. So these factors are mentioned in the Mulasivaka Sutta. And what the Buddha is saying is, if we decide to say everything is karma, then we ought not to do anything.

But if we realize that we can only deal with the karma that is present right here, right now, right? In other words, if I try to figure out this person attacked me because seven lifetimes ago I attacked him, who cares? How the hell does that matter? What do I do about it now? I've got to chop limb, I've got to get to the hospital.

Right? I have some kind of genetic disorder. It's because 234 lifetimes ago, I said this to a specific person, and they cursed me. May you be born with this particular ailment. So what? Can I do something about it now with modern medicine, or with the tools and technologies that are available? Apply karma in this way. Don't blame your problems on the past.

Deal with them here and now in the best way you can. On the flip side of that, the good stuff that happens. You don't think, oh, this good stuff happened because I said this to a particular person 700 lifetimes ago. You just say, I deserve it, yeah, give it to me. So karma is dealt in every given moment. That's where the free will is. That's where the choice is.

The part that blows your mind about karma is trying to find out the intricacies of why this happened, when it arose the first time, and how it came through all the many different streams of lifetimes, and all of these things. You don't need to know all that. Just simplify it to understand: here's what I have to deal with in this situation, right here, right now. What can I do with the tools that are provided to me? In the case of hindrances, in the case of difficult situations, what can I do? I can use the Eightfold Path. I can use the 6R's. I can use my knowledge and wisdom to see reality as it is, using yoniso manasikara, attention rooted in reality, in the present, seeing what is going on. Then, if I have wisdom, wise attention, wise perspective, I see it through the three marks of existence

which changes my relationship to what is happening. From 'this is me, mine, or myself' to 'this is just a process that is happening.' Does that mean that you can't feel anything? Does that mean you can't feel angry? Does that mean you can't feel sad? Does that mean you can't feel grief? Does that mean you can't feel anxiety?

No, nobody is saying that. What it means is, I feel angry in this moment. That is an unpleasant experience. That is an unpleasant vedana, unpleasant feeling. Where is it coming from? It is due to this particular situation. If I react from that anger, then I'm only adding more fuel to that fire. But if I can feel into the anger, recognize it, acknowledge it, see it for what it is, send myself loving kindness instead, let go and have loving kindness or compassion or equanimity, whatever seems appropriate, and then there is that pause. It allows me to see how best to deal with the person and/or situation, to de-escalate it, so that I don't reinforce the patterns of anger in my habitual tendencies,

thereby creating similar kinds of situations or potentialities for similar kinds of situations to arise in new bhava, in new existences in the future. If you can understand karma in this way, there's nothing else you have to do. Just see everything and experience everything fully, but without taking it personally. It's a tall order, but we have the tools to do it. And it takes time.

It takes patience. It takes effort. Yes, you will fail, but you will learn from those failures at some point. You may fail one time, you may fail a thousand times, you may fail ten thousand times. But the beauty of it is, one day you will be tired of it and you will just say, to hell with all that. I'm not going to do that again, and it just shatters all of those ten thousand failures, just by that one choice to say, I choose to go in a different direction.

What have you done? You have created new causes and conditions. And as you continue to replicate that same kind of pattern of behavior, that strengthens. And those formations that are rooted in greed, hatred, and delusion, not having been given fuel through our intentions, whether it's through our thoughts, through our words, or through our deeds, fall away. We can get uprooted.

And those thoughts, those words, those actions that are rooted in the wholesome, and ultimately rooted in the Eightfold Path, without taking it personally, allow us to fully let go and experience full awakening. May suffering ones be suffering free, and the fear struck fearless be. May the grieving shed all grief, and may all beings find relief. May all beings share this merit that we have thus acquired for the acquisition of all kinds of happiness. May beings inhabiting space and earth, devas and nagas of mighty power, share this merit of ours. May they long protect the Buddha's dispensation. Sadhu, sadhu, sadhu.