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Can't change Karma?
RichardH
Veteran
Last evening I was told by a teacher (Kwan Um Zen) that "You cannot change the shape of your karma anymore than you can change the shape of your nose, you can only know it, make it clear". I have found that trying to change my unskillful karma, trying to alter those undesirable impulses never truly works, and amounts to getting caught up in self improvement. Yet I do not want to give license to them for obvious reasons.
It seems to me that awareness has a transformative nature, that things find their proper place in the light of awareness, full awareness, and this is what the teacher is pointing to.
Does anyone have any thoughts on this? What is your experience? What do you think the teacher pointing to?
Thanks.
.....and please, no glib Zen nuggets.
It seems to me that awareness has a transformative nature, that things find their proper place in the light of awareness, full awareness, and this is what the teacher is pointing to.
Does anyone have any thoughts on this? What is your experience? What do you think the teacher pointing to?
Thanks.
.....and please, no glib Zen nuggets.
0
Comments
The nose analogy is ridiculous.
First of all, a nose is tangible and solid (ok, let's also not get into the 5 aggregates and self/not-self, for the moment!) and Karma is a concept, a process.
Secondly, (and I'm not being glib) he's forgetting breaks and plastic surgery.
That's why I find the analogy flawed and the comment puzzling.
Can you clarify "Shape of Karma"?
Yes you can do surgery on your karma too. we do it all the time. interventions of all kinds. But that is not the practice he is talking about.
Clarify meaning see clearly your karma , your way of being, behaving, patterns of impulses, desires etc. In short, know what you are and how you are. The way you are in a given situation.
Yes that makes sense. How is going for you?
While I would not presume to gainsay a teacher of the noble Kwan Um school (in which I myself practiced for some time last year), I do believe it's possible to change our karma. Indeed, I believe changing our karma for the better is not only possible, it's essential.
According to the Dhammapada, the ultimate goal is to free ourselves from the karmic cycle once and for all, and move on to Nirvana (Nibbana), the deathless state. But until we reach that point (which may take many lifetimes), we exist in a karmic realm: every thought, word, and action leads to a corresponding result. In this reality, the conscious and deliberate striving for karmic improvement is as real and necessary as anything else in the physical realm.
It sounds like you (and maybe your teacher) are saying that karmic improvement is the indirect result of cultivating awareness, and I agree with that 100%. But I don't think that rules out the path of consciously and deliberately striving to improve our karma as well.
On the contrary: all through the Buddhist scriptures we are instructed to focus on virtue, not vice; wisdom, not folly; truth, not falsehood; etc. In every sphere of life, we are exhorted to plant good karmic seeds, so that down the line, in the future, our karma (and therefore our lives) will be better than they are now.
That is my current understanding, based on my experience; I welcome other views as well!
This is a practice that i cultivate regularly. I believe that if something comes up for me as anger then its my karma that in that moment i've cultivated enough to become angry. But this is the empowering part. I can in that moment cultivate non-angry seeds. Thats why im grateful for dependent origination and that it states that karma isn't permanent and that i can cultivate merit to cut its root in samsara.
There is a tension that can happen between letting-be in awareness, as awareness, and not letting-be which can draw the mind into struggle with entrenched patterns and measuring ones actions against an idea how they should and should not be.
Yes very much so Richard, After these pufications practises it feel like a heavy weight has been lifted of my chest, Things that should have gone wrong in the day seems to be fine and generally everything negative that could have occured does not. Purifcation is a wonderful practise.
If our Positive karma we have collected can be extinguished just by one moment of anger is it not possible for our negative karma to be extunguished by practising the opponent forces to them ?
"Shape of karma" is your karmic profile. The distinct patterns of mental and emotional activity, their momentum. How in a given situation you behave. In short your habitual way of being, it is as distinct for you as the shape of your nose. Knowing this happen if we are aware over time.
There is a tension that can happen between letting-be in awareness, as awareness, and not letting-be which can draw the mind into struggle with entrenched patterns and measuring ones actions against an idea how they should and should not be.
It just seems that if you truly practice from an unconditioned "perspective" purification is not the point?<!-- / message -->
The whole point of Buddhism is to practise the path to freedom from suffering !
An unconditioned perspective in this point is not what we need, For our own and other suffering it is simply not enough to have a view like this. We must have a view that seeks to alleviate suffering our own and others.
Purification is an essential practise as realizations arise in dependence upon the correct causes and conditions gathering internally and externally for such minds to manifest, With the amount of crap clouding our mind it is very difficult to make progress.
The unconditioned view you talk about is common in Zen practise but non the less we must distinguish conventional aspects of phenomena from the ultimate unconditioned, In this way it is very helpful to engage in act of purification.
I know the struggle you talk of friend, We must accept what is before us as what we have created to experience But at the same time we must also strive to become as quickly as possible enlightened, Not just for our own sake but for others to (by engaging in purification it speed up the process creating less obstacles )
Thats is a good point, seed and fruit present at once.
Agreed. There is much a stake, and this has given me much to take back the teacher. He needs to clarify his statement. Thank you.
The one point that does surprise me is how the notion of the "shape" of one's karma seems odd to some. But maybe that's another discussion.
Richard,
I love this statement; it feels very precise to me. To me, it offers a great distinction that helps us refocus where we are and what to intend.
Another mentioned a metaphor of planting seeds, which I think is also great. If our karmic profile is likened to our personal garden, then we have what is being described as the 'shape' of our karma. With that metaphor in place, if we look closer...
By the time we are tasting the fruit of the karma (say, emotionality) we have also digested the seed, and will therefore replant the seed. We cannot change what plant will be born of that seed, its already sewn. The law of nature sculpts that (DO if you will) from seed to fruit, karma will unfold. By the time we collapse the perception we are in the cycle, and it cannot be changed.
What we need to do is catch the perceptions before they solidify into conceptions and step aside. As in, not eat the fruit. If you eat the fruit, you have the sensual experience, and replant the seed. You cannot change what happens with the cycle, only in what you eat. You cannot change the results you experience, only the actions.
If you attempt to uproot one of the plants, you implant aggression or repression, or grasping, or dissatisfaction. The trick is to just step aside before you eat the fruit, and you side step the cycle of karma. Even thinking "I don't want this fruit" is a sensual experience of dissatisfaction, which implants seeds. By looking, knowing the karma you've cultivated, you can come to understand what not to eat, and just look. The more you look at the karma that is actually there, the more obvious skillful means becomes.
With warmth,
Matt
"I am reminded of something my teachers says about karma along the lines of the original post. Not to quote exactly, he says if you pick a fight with your karma, your karma will always win. It's about non-opposition to the patterns that you have been living with. By knowing it and making it clear, dissolution or transformation is given a field in which to work. Butting up against it, in a sense striving for it to be different, to be not so, is to fill the space with more karmic activity."
...and yet another referred me to this koan..
http://www.ibiblio.org/zen/gateless-gate/2.html
What caz namyaw is likely referring to are the four opponent powers, a practice that consists on 1 - regret, 2 - refuge, 3 - determination not to repeat the action, 4 - remedial practices. It is actually pretty straightforward and easy to find online in case you have interest.
You can't plant apple seeds and expect oranges. People usually try to take back their actions and its results but that is impossible. Even if you do the purification practices what you are actually doing is avoiding an even bigger problem, but what you did will run its causal course.
Well you have many options here. Pema Chodron would tell you to stay with the feeling and drop the storyline. TNH would say to focus on mindfulness, as the change in habits is one of the so called 'miracles of mindfulness' (if I remember correctly). I am fond of changing the focus (I think this is in the sutras), although it doesn't solve the underlying issue it scales it down a lot, then, when I want to approach it, I set a time to learn its causes and conditions. It has to be dependent on something after all. Even tonglen might help.
I don't think there is a single or a best solution. It all depends on your propensities. I like the easier road, though. Sometimes it is just best not to walk in front of an ice-cream parlor if you can't control the need, instead of repeatedly challenging yourself 'I will not have an ice-cream!' and failing every time.
I read it like this: "You can't stop being a human being, but you can see what a human being really is and put an end to suffering"
This reminds me of the fear that comes up a lot that Buddhism promotes non-action... as though letting oneself be steamrolled is skillful.
Yes, certainly. Self-interest that really 'keeps us trapped' feels like it 'keeps us safe'. Its pretty silly.
Then it seemed that this teacher is speaking of something a little different. You cannot change your past actions [karma]. They are a done deal. You can mitigate their ripening by not creating the secondary condition necessary for ripening. That occurs by the clarity of presence.
Then there is another level even more profound. The answer is at the tip of your nose, but can you see it?
The tail of that question wags the whole chain of causation.
The idea of cultivating good karma and getting rid of bad karma is like grasping for up and having no down. The teaching points to not following this wheel of heaven>hell>heaven>hell.
Isn’t self-improvement a manifestation of buying into this ‘Wrongful Identification’ not so humbly called ‘Me’?
Where does this ‘Me’ story line fit (comfortably) into/with the “no-self” Buddha spoke of?
Is it just my view, or do others notice a contradiction in combining these two story lines of self-improvement and the ‘no-self’?
Peace and love,
S9
Rings true.
yes
There is the provisional. Karma belongs to bodymind and world and is self correcting, This self correcting includes the unawakened mind saying "I must not steal anymore it is wrong, I will change."
What say?
Indeed. And how does this teaching propose doing this?
This is a mysterious statement. What was the context?
I'll take a guess:
Of course, there is a law of karma; good actions will bring good results and so forth. However, there's just too many factors at play for us to predict what will happen next. So, our life remains unpredictable, beyond our control, like the shape of our nose. Yet, we can simply continue to perform good deeds, accepting whatever result occurs, without attachment. With this detachment, we can focus on our practice, instead of being distracted by the unpredictable outcomes of our actions.
Is zazen a cause of our clarity, or is it effect, or for that matter is there really any such thing as cause and effect.
Does the head of a dog cause his tail of the dog simply because he seems to be walking in that direction? Or is progress simply a favorite idea, or a wish for control?
It is my understanding that samsara is not actually changed by our seeming improvements. Samsara is circular much as in the symbol of a snake with his tail in his mouth.
So Nirvana is noticed as ever present, when we no longer buy into the fact that we are traveling in or on that ongoing circle and we simply stand aside, letting this dream world play itself out.
Peace and love,
S9
It is both. The endless dis-equilibrium of Samsara and timeless equilibrium of Nirvana are one. From one side there appears to be control, from the other no control. Both are honoured.
Yes .This is why Bodhisattva vows are to liberate beings from the wheel and not just lead them to the nice parts.
we stand completely aside as it plays out by itself and play it out at as fully invested actors, at the same time
Fused to the world yet free of it, a million tons yet weightless.
Excellent. You answered the questions of your opening post. It was at the tip of your nose, but the rest of the question asks if you can see it?
That's the head.
The tail has no words.
Best regards Richard
I know that you can't change your karma.
Karma is part of the seed of our being. It's the way you are designed and trying to disect why you get angry at a broken cup isn't going to help.
Karma is part of the 5 families. Padma, Ratna, Karma, Vajra, and Buddha.
It's part of your mandala... it has its samsaric aspect as well as its nirvana aspect. Samsara is not bad and nirvana is not good. It's just how you are.
I made my personal mandala a few years ago. It turns out I am very founded in karma with the passions of Padma going on all the time.
Karma is envy, green, jealous. It's another part of what keeps the cycle of your being going. That's what causes little accidents - karma - that little annoyance - karma. Accidents, even little one always remind us that we are carrying around karma. You can transcend karma into it's nirvanic aspect but you can't get rid of your innate style... that's what I think your friend meant.
Well from first hand experience I know you can change that.
R: Yes it is all one gesture. However I would propose that this dividing is not arbitrary, but also part of the gesture.
S9: Could you say that a little differently for me, please? I am not understanding your point, sorry. The word gesture esp. isn’t working for me.
R: It is both. The endless dis-equilibrium of Samsara and timeless equilibrium of Nirvana are one. From one side there appears to be control, from the other no control. Both are honored.
S9: I would say rather that it is seemingly both. You see…I don’t see samsara and nirvana as two sides of one coin. I see them as two perspective of the ‘One,’ one perspective is a misunderstanding of the Actual. Do you see this differently?
R: Yes. This is why Bodhisattva vows are to liberate beings from the wheel and not just lead them to the nice parts.
S9: Quite so, but is this done by combining the two of these (samsara and nirvana), or is it actually done by dis-identifying with the incorrect view?
R: We stand completely aside as it plays out by itself and play it out at as fully invested actors, at the same time.
S9: There is a contradiction in this statement. Can you see it? How does one stand COMPLETELY aside and yet at the same time identify as the doer. Granted there is a doer in this dream (aka samsara), but are we the doer?
S9: One last statement and I’ll stop flapping my lips. ; ^ )
In zazen when we meditate without an object, I believe that we must be very careful not to make 'objectless-ness' or the void into an object in itself, because of the habitual mind’s ongoing tendency to get away with such things just beneath our radar.
We are speaking of “Not freedom of the mind, but freedom from the mind.”
Peace and love,
S9
then come the skandas, the five families and mandala, the 6 worlds of the wheel... etc. samsara orders which when seen and understood from on-high leads to the background where it shortcircuits
and then like... there is no nirvana either
flash flash the beyond beyond beyond
oh no...! :eek::D:crazy:
Karma can be changed. If it is not already ripening then negativity can be delt with.
here.http://www.ibiblio.org/zen/gateless-gate/2.html
The difference here may be between Zen and Vajrayana, not between correct and incorrect understanding.
Hehe
I prefer straight answers, Something i can first work with on an interlectual level and then tackle with meditative insight.
Half the time i have no clue what zen is getting at