Transcript Karma and Cause & Effect

Karma and Cause &
Effect
Basics of Buddhism
Written by Pat Allwright
Presented by Linda Myring
& Jay Williams
The Law of Causality
Cause and Effect
 “Renge,
the lotus flower,
symbolizes the wonder of this
Law. Once you realize that your
own life is the Mystic Law, you
will realize that so are the lives
of all others.”
The Law of Causality
Cause and Effect

The lotus flower
produces flowers
and seeds at the
same time,
indicating that the
effect is
simultaneous with
the cause.
What is our destiny and
what causes it?
 Everyone
wants to live a long,
healthy and fulfilled life.
 It
is very difficult to do this if we
do not have an understanding
of how destiny is created.
What is our destiny and what
causes it?
• Much as we may try to improve our
circumstances, an unexpected
misfortune can throw us off course.
• This makes us feel as if we are being
carried along by our changing destiny,
like the currents of the ocean.
Karma and Destiny
Buddhism explains destiny through the
concept of karma.
 Karma originally meant action. Later, it
came to be understood as the destiny
one had created through these actions.
 Every thought, word and deed is a
cause which creates an effect.
 On a simple level, if we go to work, we
will get paid. If we exercise, we will
become fit.

Karma and Destiny

Buddhism therefore teaches that our
fate is not arbitrary, neither is it imposed
by supernatural forces.
We create our own destiny.
Past, Present, and Future
If you want to understand the causes
that existed in the past, look at the
results as they are manifested in the
present.
 And if you want to understand what
results will be manifested in the future,
look at the causes that exist in the
present.

Karma: It just isn’t fair!
Why is that the nice woman down the
road has cancer?
 Why are people born in such different
circumstances?
 Surely a child has had no chance to
make the causes to be born into poverty
and hunger?
 Why do some leaves on the tree get
eaten by worms and other leaves do
not?

Karma

Mutable Karma – (Lighter) Not fixed.
Manifests in the same lifetime it is
created.
Immutable Karma - (Heavy)
 Traditionally considered unchangeabledestined to appear in the next lifetime or
lifetimes.

The Nine Consciousnesses
 Never
seek this Gohonzon
outside yourself.
The Gohonzon exists only within the
mortal flesh of us ordinary people who
embrace the Lotus Sutra and chant
Nam-myoho-renge-kyo.
 The body is the palace of the ninth
consciousness, the unchanging reality
that reigns over all of life’s functions.

The Nine Consciousnesses
The First Five Consciousnesses:
 Hearing, sight, smell, touch and taste.


Sixth Consciousness: Mind
Consciousness – The sixth level is the
thinking mind which integrates the
information we receive from the five
senses.
The Nine Consciousnesses
Seventh Consciousness:
 Mano Consciousness - Where we
form judgements about what action
to take.
 It corresponds to the thinking and
aware self which discerns value.
 This seventh level is the area of
motivation and intention, much of it
subconscious.
Seventh Consciousness

The manoconsciousness
[thinking mind]
forms a selfconcept, often a
distorted one, and is
characterized by
self-attachment.
 The realm of
abstract or spiritual
thought and
Source: http://redwing.hutman.net/~mreed/Assets/ego.jpg
judgement, and ego
I love me, what’s your hobby?
awareness
QuickTime™ and a
TIFF (Uncompressed) decompressor
are needed to see this picture.
Seventh Consciousness

The self-concept created by the manoconsciousness is not experienced
consciously in the course of daily living;
it is an idea of “selfness” on an
unconscious or subconscious level.

It also includes the ability to distinguish
between good and evil.
 It may be described as a conduit between the
manifest mental activities and the dormant
ones, between the conscious and the
unconscious.
Source: Living Buddhism 01/05 v.9 n.1 p.33
The Nine Consciousnesses

Eighth Consciousness (Karmic
Storehouse):
 Alaya consciousness - Storehouse of our
karma.
 Alaya literally means ‘accumulation’. All our
experiences are filtered through the initial
seven layers of consciousness and stored in
the eighth, which exists as an unconscious
memory of all our previous actions and
reactions.
 This influences our reactions at any given
time, based on our past experiences,
including those of previous lifetimes.
Buddha Nature
Ninth Consciousness
– the basis
of all spiritual functions and is
identified with the true entity of life.
 Nam-myoho-renge-kyo
The fundamental, original and
absolutely pure consciousness which is
universal and constitutes the essence of
our lives.
 Without tapping the ninth, our destiny
lies in the eighth – and is fixed.

Cause and Effect are
Simultaneous

The doctrine of karma clarifies why
people in the present age, which
Buddhism calls the Latter Day of the
Law, in which life is strongly influenced
by the three poisons, which cause
people to take incorrect actions
resulting in disasters within the three
areas of human activity.
Transforming Karma
 When
we practice we still experience
the effects of our karma.
 Those hidden things that cause us to
suffer start to surface because we are
changing them.
 We are tapping into the ninth
consciousness, underneath the
storehouse of karma.
 The flaws have to come to the surface
in order to be purified.
Awakening to Our Mystic
Reality
We, living beings, have dwelt in the sea of
the sufferings of birth and death since
time without beginning. But now that we
have become votaries of the Lotus Sutra,
we will without fail attain the Buddha’s
entity which is indestructible as a
diamond, realizing that our bodies and
minds have existed since the beginning
less past are inherently endowed with the
eternally unchanging nature, and thus
awakening to our mystic reality with our
mystic wisdom (Major Writings, Vol.2p.55).
Two Approaches to
Overcoming Suffering

A Buddhist Podcast http://abuddhistpodcast.com/past-shows/

On Attaining Buddhahood in this Lifetime.
(11:08-14:05-3 minutes) based on SGI
President Daisaku Ikeda’s lectures in 2006 on the letter
written by
Nichiren Daishonin.





http://cdn.libsyn.com/abuddhistpodcast/A_Buddhist_Podcast__On_Attaining_Buddhahood.mp3

Two approaches for overcoming suffering:

1.
2.
Before the Lotus Sutra - Transmigration, You suffer again
and again in lifetime after lifetime because of your desires.
After the Lotus Sutra - Nichiren Daishonin’s Buddhism, You
Study Resources

sgi-usa-southbaycc.org/regionstudy.htm

abuddhistpodcast.com/past-shows/

sgi-usa.org/