Karma and Cause

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Karma and Cause Effect Basics of
BuddhismWritten by Pat Allwright

• Presented by Linda Myring
• Jay Williams

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The Law of CausalityCause 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.

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The Law of CausalityCause and Effect

• The lotus flower produces flowers and seeds at
  the same time, indicating that the effect is
  simultaneous with the cause.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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Karma and Destiny

• Buddhism therefore teaches that our fate is not
  arbitrary, neither is it imposed by supernatural
  forces.
• We create our own destiny.

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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.

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Karma It just isnt 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?

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Karma

• Mutable Karma (Lighter) Not fixed. Manifests
  in the same lifetime it is created.
• Immutable Karma - (Heavy)
• Traditionally considered unchangeable- destined
  to appear in the next lifetime or lifetimes.

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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 lifes functions.

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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.

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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.

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Seventh Consciousness

• The mano-consciousness thinking mind forms a
  self-concept, often a distorted one, and is
  characterized by self-attachment.
• The realm of abstract or spiritual thought and
  judgement, and ego awareness

Source http//redwing.hutman.net/mreed/Assets/eg
o.jpg
I love me, whats your hobby?
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Seventh Consciousness

• The self-concept created by the
  mano-consciousness 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
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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.

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Buddha NatureNinth Consciousness

• Nam-myoho-renge-kyo the basis of all spiritual
  functions and is identified with the true entity
  of life.
• 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.

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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.

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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.

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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 Buddhas 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).

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Two Approaches to Overcoming Suffering

• A Buddhist Podcast http//abuddhistpodcast.com/pas
  t-shows/
• On Attaining Buddhahood in this Lifetime.
  (1108-1405-3 minutes) based on SGI
  President Daisaku Ikedas 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
• Before the Lotus Sutra - Transmigration, You
  suffer again and again in lifetime after lifetime
  because of your desires.
• After the Lotus Sutra - Nichiren Daishonins
  Buddhism, You commit to guiding everyone toward
  enlightenment. We are born to bring out the best
  in ourselves.

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Study Resources

• sgi-usa-southbaycc.org/regionstudy.htm
• abuddhistpodcast.com/past-shows/
• sgi-usa.org/