With palms together,
Good Morning Everyone,
Reading a quote about karma on Facebook this morning pinched me. The quote, appearing on Adam Tebbe’s Sweeping Zen said the following:
“Karma is of body, speech and mind. Thoughts have karmic results. Speech has karmic results. Bodily actions have karmic results. That’s why it’s important to think, speak, and act properly.”
This is a common view, understandable given how things are so often taught, yet incorrect. While we often consider karma to be cause and effect, it is actually cause-effect, one, not two. People perceiving with Small Mind see a linearity, when seeing with a Big Mind, no linearity.
If we focus our attention on the “effect” of a “cause” we are separating one from the other, thus eviscerating a living, continuous and dynamic reality, and, in effect, killing it. We are no longer seeing karma, but instead examining a carcass.
Karma is one, not two. It is a continuum (cause-effect-cause-effect-cause, etc.), a complete, total manifestation of our intentional action in thought and body. Yet even this is not quite it. We suffer from linearity of language. Flowing water has no beginning or end: flowing water is just flowing water. Is it flowing to nourish or destroy?
Intention is key in understanding karma. This is so because it is a manifestation of our true nature. We cannot become a buddha, we are a buddha. Practice to open the self to that nature, be a buddha and no problem. So the precepts are not external rules, principles, or guides. They are a mirrored reflection of something we have hidden deeply within us. They are our true nature. We have but to shed the barriers that hide them in order to bring them into the universe. We shed through practice, as Master Dogen teaches, letting body and mind fall away.
Be less concerned with the result, give up the poison of delusion. Be buddha. Be well.
Good Morning Everyone,
Reading a quote about karma on Facebook this morning pinched me. The quote, appearing on Adam Tebbe’s Sweeping Zen said the following:
“Karma is of body, speech and mind. Thoughts have karmic results. Speech has karmic results. Bodily actions have karmic results. That’s why it’s important to think, speak, and act properly.”
This is a common view, understandable given how things are so often taught, yet incorrect. While we often consider karma to be cause and effect, it is actually cause-effect, one, not two. People perceiving with Small Mind see a linearity, when seeing with a Big Mind, no linearity.
If we focus our attention on the “effect” of a “cause” we are separating one from the other, thus eviscerating a living, continuous and dynamic reality, and, in effect, killing it. We are no longer seeing karma, but instead examining a carcass.
Karma is one, not two. It is a continuum (cause-effect-cause-effect-cause, etc.), a complete, total manifestation of our intentional action in thought and body. Yet even this is not quite it. We suffer from linearity of language. Flowing water has no beginning or end: flowing water is just flowing water. Is it flowing to nourish or destroy?
Intention is key in understanding karma. This is so because it is a manifestation of our true nature. We cannot become a buddha, we are a buddha. Practice to open the self to that nature, be a buddha and no problem. So the precepts are not external rules, principles, or guides. They are a mirrored reflection of something we have hidden deeply within us. They are our true nature. We have but to shed the barriers that hide them in order to bring them into the universe. We shed through practice, as Master Dogen teaches, letting body and mind fall away.
Be less concerned with the result, give up the poison of delusion. Be buddha. Be well.
Wow! Thanks Roshi! I never thought of Karma like that.
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