What I’m going to talk about today is a subject that I don’t usually talk much about, because people seem to think it’s a magical or mystical thing or it’s handed down to us from some god or a higher being; none of these are true. I am talking about karma.
Many people think that karma is handed down to us from lifetime to lifetime, and we can’t avoid it. Actually, karma means patterns of behaviour we have done so often they have become habits. It is no more mystical or magical than that. This means karma is one hundred percent in your own hands. You produce your own karma, not anybody else.
When we do an act for the first time, we plant a seed in our mind. For example, you tell a lie to this person for the first time. That plants a seed, and that seed becomes a potential. If you never tell another lie, then that potential will just sit there dormant, and nothing will happen. But if you tell another lie, what you’re doing is watering that seed, and it will start to grow. The more you keep lying, the more you keep watering that seed, and the more that seed will grow. That seed will now grow into a habit, it grows into a pattern of behaviour, and that is what karma is. It’s a pattern of behaviour.
When you keep acting in a certain way, that pattern of behaviour keeps growing, and it becomes part of your character. When that happens, you begin to act in that way from your unconscious mind. You’re now lying without consciously thinking about what you are doing. So, in the first instant when you planted that seed, you are doing it consciously. You consciously made a choice to lie, but the more that you’ve watered that seed, the more it becomes an unconscious way of acting. It is now a habit, your behaviour, your character.
It’s nothing to do with a god or higher being, it’s nothing to do with anybody else, it’s everything to do with you. And that’s the good point, because if it’s to do with you, it means that you can change. You can break that habit.
We all have behaviours that we don’t really like, or we don’t want to be that type of person, but we are. If you’re an angry person, if you’re a jealous person, if you tell lies or if you steal things, these are all learned behaviours. You are not born with any of those behaviour. No baby was born a thief, or a criminal, or a murderer, a liar, a cheat. These are all behaviours that we’ve learned. So, because we’ve learned them, we can unlearn them. We can change our behaviour.
If we keep doing the same behaviour, we’re going to keep getting the same result. Now, that is such a simple thing for us to get our heads around. But we all keep doing the same thing and expecting different results. The only way to get different results is to do different things. If we want to change our lives, if we want our lives to be happier, if we want to be contented, we have to change our behaviour.
We need to analyse the behaviours we don’t like and start to think of different ways to act. To help with this I have written an acronym called A.W.A.R.E. We can use this practice during our meditation sessions. The A stands for attention, W is why, A is assess, R is reality and E is examine.
While sitting in meditation, focus on your breath for a few minutes. This will help calm you down and focus the mind. Now, think of a behavioural pattern you wish to change. Then bring an incident into your mind when you behaved in that way.
Now use the AWARE practice:
Attention – look at this behaviour and see if you are working from your conscious mind, or are you working from your unconscious mind. Are you on autopilot, is this simply a habit? You bring your full attention to how you acted.
Why – And then you look at the why you acted that way. Now, when we look at the ‘why’ what we’re looking for is what’s my motivation? What is my intention of acting this way? Why did I behave like this
Assess – then we assess if the action was an ethical way to be. Am I causing harm to somebody else or am I causing harm to myself?
Reality – a lot of the time when we are on autopilot our actions are not based in reality. We tend to generalise or catastrophise. So, here we ask ourselves am I just generalising? Am I catastrophising?
Now we’ve looked at our behaviour and understood that it either stems from our conscious or unconscious mind. We have looked at why we acted that way. Assessed the situation to see if it was ethical and if it was based in reality. So, now we need to examine a better way to act in future.
Examine – if you don’t want to act in the same way in future, you need to explore better ways to act. Ways that are helpful, skilful, ethical and kind. By reflecting on a better way to act, you are planting seeds for the future. So, the next time you find yourself in the same situation you can act in a different way. This will help you water the new seed and the more you do that, the more your behaviour will change. This is obviously a slow process and it will take time and a lot of effort, but it is doable.
I am sure we all have lots of behaviours we would like to change. Just start with a simple one, because once you start to see changes in that behaviour, it is going to motivate you to change other behaviours.
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The
final aspect of the eightfold path is staying focused, which is achieved by
effort, mindfulness and concentration.
Effort
Without
applying effort, we are not going to reach any of the goals we set ourselves.
Here I wish to highlight the effort required to avoid harmful acts and develop
helpful ones.
These
are split into four parts, namely the effort to avoid, the effort to overcome,
the effort to develop and the effort to maintain.
This
is a list of the harmful acts we need to avoid and overcome.
Violence
Stealing
Sexual misconduct
Lying
Divisive speech
Harsh words
Gossiping
Greed
Ill-will
Inappropriate view
We
have to put in a great effort in order to avoid these ten harmful actions. This
is achieved by setting ourselves boundaries and ensuring we stay within them.
In my own case some of them came easy to me and others were fairly difficult,
but by putting in the effort and setting myself redlines, I manage to avoid
them for the most part. But none of us are perfect, so we shouldn’t be too hard
on ourselves.
The
next place we apply effortis to
overcome the harmful acts that have already arisen. This one is a little
trickier, particularly if they have already become a habit. The first thing I
suggest you do is to rate the above list of harmful actions from one to ten –
one being the act you do the most and ten being the one you do the least. Be
honest with yourself, even if it is painful, or there will be no point in doing
the exercise. Now, start with number one on your list and each day set an
intention to refrain from doing the act. This exercise will help keep it in the
forefront of your mind. If you do unwittingly perform a harmful deed, don’t get
frustrated, just reaffirm your intention. This is where mindful awareness comes
into its own because you are going to have to be vigilant of your actions.
Slowly work through the list until you feel confident that you have by and
large overcome them.
The
set of skilful acts we have to develop and maintain are the opposite of the
harmful acts.
Compassion
Generosity
Self-restraint
Truthfulness
Kind speech
Pleasant words
Helpful words
Contentment
Goodwill
Appropriate view
The
third effortis to develop skilful
acts that have not yet arisen. The perfect time to think about and cultivate
these helpful deeds is during your daily meditation or reflection session. If
you review each day which actions have been helpful, and which have been
harmful, you will see a pattern emerge. You will then be able to see what you
need to work on.
During
your reflection session, write down the ten helpful acts on a piece of paper.
Then grade them from one to ten – ten being the act that comes naturally to you
and one being the act that you have to cultivate. Those you grade from one to
five are the ones you should work on. At regular intervals, do the grading
again. Note your progress every time and recommit to developing the helpful
acts you need to work on.
The
final effortis to maintain the
helpful actions that have already arisen. This follows on from the previous
effort. There, you contemplated which helpful acts you need to work on. Now
focus on the ones that come naturally and need no great work. You should also
remain mindful of these helpful deeds, so they can become an even deeper habit.
It is no good lying sometimes and telling the truth at other times; stealing
sometimes and not stealing other times; getting totally drunk one day and then
saying you don’t drink another day; or being faithful sometimes and cheating on
your partner at other times. These helpful acts must become natural and
spontaneous. It needs a great amount of effort to keep these going, because if
you do not stay watchful, they can easily drift away from you. Perseverance and
vigilance are key here.
Mindfulness
Whether
we are on the eightfold path or not, we still should try to be mindful, and
maintain an awareness of where our actions are taking us. If we don’t, we are
not going to find the peace of mind we are searching for. So, let’s look at the
different aspects of the path I have laid out in the last three posts and
examine how we can approach them mindfully.
We
cannot just jump into our practices without first having an appropriate view.
Of course, cultivating positive experience is what our practices are all about,
but if we have no clear picture of where we are going and why, we can quite
easily flounder. We need to know what and why we are doing any practice and see
clearly how it will fit into our lives. We need to study and think to gain a
clear picture in our mind before we dive into our practice. A firm and stable
foundation is required. Mindfully setting our intentions for travelling on this
path and implementing a meditation practice is a wonderful way to become motivated.
It allows us to stay on track. It is therefore important to have well
thought-out intentions and stay mindful of them.
Mindless
speech can often divide people and make them feel disconnected. In contrast
mindful speech helps us heal rifts and make better connections with each other.
I feel that if we practice mindful listening, which is being totally engaged
with the other person and allowing them to finish their sentences, mindful
speech arises naturally, and we can enjoy genuine dialogue.
We
need to mindfully check in with ourselves during the day to ensure our actions,
physically, verbally and mentally, are not harmful to ourselves or others. This
strengthens our practice, so we maintain the goal of responsible living.
Usually
livelihood equates with survival – earning money so we can live. But when we
are being mindful of our work, we can see that it is also about contributing to
the common good. It is not just about money; it is also about giving back to
society. We have to be mindful of any harm we may be causing ourselves and
others.
Of
course, we need to put effort into whatever we are doing on the path to ensure
success, but there is such a thing as too much effort. We need to be mindful of
the amount of effort we are putting in. If the effort is causing tension, it is
too much. If the effort is not producing any results, it is not enough. Be
mindful of how much effort you are putting into the path and your
practices.
When
we are being mindful, we are fully aware of, but not tangled up in, the various
aspects of our experience – the emotional, the physical, the spiritual as well
as the social. Mindfulness covers our complete engagement with life.
I
will talk more about mindfulness in my next post.
Concentration
If we
wish for a mind that is at peace we need to learn how to focus single-mindedly
on an object of meditation. However, what I want to highlight here is a
particular type of one-pointedness. It is a wholesome type of concentration. A
killer about to murder his victim, a soldier on the battlefield or a burglar
about to break into your home all act with a concentrated mind, but they cannot
be classed as a wholesome one-pointedness.
Buddha
stated that
appropriate concentration
is dependent on the development of all the preceding seven steps of the
eightfold path:
‘Now what is appropriate
concentration with its supports and requisite conditions? Any singleness of
mind equipped with these seven factors, appropriate view, intention, speech,
action, livelihood, effort and mindfulness, is called appropriate concentration
with its supports and requisite conditions’.
While
concentrating on appropriate view, you have to stay focused on cause and
effect. Whatever intentional actions you do—be it with your body, speech or
mind—will create a reaction in the future. You have to be naturally aware of
this fact whenever you perform any intentional action. You also have to stay
focused on the impermanence of everything, or you may find yourself getting
attached to things, which in turn will cause you to suffer. We tend to have a
fixed and solid sense of self, which is not an accurate view. This again is
going to cause us suffering in the long run. I will talk more about these
points in future posts.
Next,
you should concentrate on appropriate intentions. Our intentions should be to
help and not harm ourselves and others. To achieve this, we have to remain
centred on what is motivating us. We have to ensure our mind isn’t being driven
by any of the three poisons or is clouded by ill will, because if it is, our
actions of body and speech will reflect that, and we will end up harming
someone. By reflecting on what motivates you, it will ensure you do not
intentionally cause harm.
Now
we come to concentration of appropriate speech. A lot of the time we open our
mouth before engaging the brain, and because we are not focused, what comes out
can be harmful, unkind and unhelpful. We lie, use divisive speech, use harsh
words and gossip with such ease, it is frightening. It is as if our mouth has a
life of its own. To counter this, we have to concentrate on our speech. Lying
is never going to help anyone. When we use divisive speech, we are not making
friends; we are just causing divisions between people. Using harsh words to someone’s
face is going to hurt them, and gossiping is a waste of time. So, we have to
have the appropriate level of concentration towards our speech, and then we
will learn to talk in a way that is both helpful and kind.
Concentration
of appropriate action is where we direct our attention towards the actions of
our body. This will ensure we refrain from killing, stealing, sexual misconduct
and other harmful actions of the body. Buddha advised his son, Rahula, to
reflect on any deeds he is thinking about carrying out in this way: Is the deed
going to cause harm to himself or others? If so, do not do it, as it is a bad
deed entailing suffering. However, if you reflect on the deed and it is going
to be helpful to yourself or others, or at the very least, not harmful, you
should do it again and again, as this is a good deed entailing happiness. Thus,
we must be sure we are fully in tune with our actions, so that we are aware of
when we are helping or harming.
This
brings us to concentration of appropriate livelihood. We have to ensure our
work does not bring harm to anybody. We may be doing a dangerous job and if we
do not concentrate on our actions, we may bring harm to someone.
Whatever
we are doing we have to be sure we put in the appropriate effort and appropriate
mindfulness. If we do not concentrate our effort on all of the steps in the
eightfold path, we could become lazy or distracted, and this could lead to us
harming someone or something. If we do not focus our mind on the present
moment, it may lead our thoughts to drift back to the past or jump forward to
the future. Neither of these are helpful. By concentrating on the present
moment our minds will be calm and our actions kind and helpful.
When
our mind is not focused it flaps around like a fish on dry land. It simply
cannot stay still and jumps from one idea to another, from one thought to
another, there is absolutely no control. Such a distracted mind is consumed by
worries and concerns about what has happened or may happen in the future. It
doesn’t see the whole picture and distorts reality.
But a
mind that has been trained in concentration can remain focused on its object
without any distractions. This allows the mind to become calm, clear and open.
This calm, openness can then be taken off the cushion and used in the outside
world. This will allow us to stay single-mindedly aware of all stages of this eightfold
path.
**********
Following the eightfold path is not easy because many of the things we have to change or let go of are very dear to us. We are passionate about them and have often invested an awful lot of time cultivating them. Letting these unhelpful things go can disturb us. Therefore, change takes diligence, discipline and mindful awareness. We have to understand each of the eight steps and then implement them. They have to become a part of our lives; only then will our minds be at ease and we will gradually reduce our emotional suffering and start to experience the true peace of mind we have been desperately searching for.
You can read more blogs, listen to podcasts, watch videos and practice guided meditations on the Buddhism Guide app. Available from the Apple Store and Google Play.
If you would like to become a supporter of Buddhism Guides work, such as podcasts, blogs, videos and guided meditation practices, please visithere. You can support for as little as $2 a month.
Searching for happiness seems to be one of the most important things in people’s lives today. Here in India, we’ve got the ‘Art of Happiness’ program, in Bhutan they’ve got their gross national happiness (more…)