September 2020’s, open-audience, open-discussion “Ask Us Anything” — discussions about meditation and related topics — with co-host Denny K Miu primarily address the term “Hīnayāna” and misunderstandings about karma.
My original questions for the talk (followed by Denny’s response):
- Karma seems to be the People’s Magazine (perhaps an outdated reference) of dharma. Karma seems both fundamental and profound. Gross and apparent as well as hidden and subtle. While investigating all the ins and outs of karma is considered one of the imponderables — reserved for the Buddha because the potential for madness — how can we not get scared off from deeply studying and investigating the given teachings on karma and knowing/observing karma in ones experience? [While searching I also came across a lengthy list of the types of karma in Jainism] I feel as with most everything, we benefit from feedback from friends and teachers. [UPDATE 10/8/20: regardless of all of this, most importantly, how am I viewing what is happening in any given moment, and what is my response, if any?]
- “Hīnayāna” as a superlative. As a westerner I don’t innerstand this and have no preference or value judgement to any of the vehicles, smaller (Theravada), greater (Mahayana), ultimate/indestructible (Vajrayana). If meaning just smaller vehicle, couldn’t a small vehicle, like a Porsche roadster, get somebody quickly to where they could be of assistance in special situations? I’ve also heard a non-Buddhist describe Theravada as a small path, or narrow path, or esoteric path that’s not for everyone and only a few can walk.
- [note: we did not address this topic in the chat:] “self-love” as a negative term in Mahayana. Yes, on a higher level self-love obviously is not helpful. However, for those with low self-esteem, low self-confidence, victim mentality and/or with an inferior negative ego, I feel loving one’s own heart, if done appropriately, can fulfill a healthy psychological counter-balance
- What does “Ji Ru” translate as?
(from Denny:)
- Six of the eight consciousnesses are associated with the body (sight, sound, smell, taste, touch and mental action/volition) and two are associated with the mind (self-grasping and memory/karma, aka mano and ālāya). Each can be thought of as cause (seed) and effect (fruit). The “sight” is an “effect” of the “eyes” coming into contact with simulants from the outside world, but it can also be the “cause” since it is the internal simulant for the brain (the mind root) resulting in mental action. Therefore “karma” can also be both the “cause” and the “effect”. “Karma” is the “fruit/effect” since it is a record of all mental actions, but it is also the “seed/cause” helping to shape future mental actions. However, in order for a seed (cause) to grow into a fruit (effect), it requires “condition”. The most common misunderstanding of “karma” is that it is the ”condition”. This is wrong since “karma” is only the seed that affects the future but it is not the future. We control the outcome because we control the condition.
- Hina means small and Yana means vehicle. Hanayana is a frictional term created by the Chinese buddhists to denigrate those who do not practice their so-called Mahayana tradition (Maha means big). In 1950 the World Fellowship of Buddhists had declared that the term Hīnayāna should not be used when referring to Buddhism practiced in SouthEast Asia, instead the term Theravada should be used which means elders. Surprisingly many Chinese Buddhist monastics still insist on using the pejorative term, consistent with their lack of modern education and world view. One of the most popular Mahayana scriptures is the Lotus Sutra which was translated into Chinese in 286 CE. The oldest scripture is the Aṣṭasāhasrikā Prajñāpāramitā Sūtra which was thought to be written around 50 CE. In order words, the so-called Mahayana tradition did not come into existence until almost 500 years after the death of the historical Buddha whereas the Theravada tradition came into existence immediately after (through the 1st Council). The tradition continued until the second Council which was around 300 BCE, 300 years after the death of Buddha. And the third Council which was convened by King Ashoka was around 250 BCE and subsequently delegates were sent to various parts of the world including Sri Lanka. In other words, the beginning of the Theravada tradition as practiced in SouthEast Asia predated the Mahayana tradition by at least 300 years. So it is not only contextually inaccurate, it is also historically inaccurate to refer to anything non-Mahayana as Hinayana. Finally, the beginning of Buddhism in China started with the Sutra of the Forty Two Chapters which was translated in 67 CE by two monks from India which predated the transition to Mahayana by also 300 years. In other words, the original Buddhist tradition that came to China was not even the so-called Mahayana tradition. The Mahayana tradition is actually a cultural amalgamation of Buddhism, Taoism and Confucianism.
- Jiru is 繼如. 繼 means to continue. 如 could come from 如來 which is one of the ten epithets of Buddha. In Sanskrit 如來 is Tathāgata which means the one beyond all coming and going – beyond all transitory phenomena.
Audio: Karma Knows | (9/29/2020 — “Ask Us Anything” With Denny K Miu)
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The raw unedited YouTube transcription of this podcast:
you picked you picked two good topics today well i appreciate that yeah that’s it’s kind of things that popped up while we
were um doing um caddy choi’s um she was leading the uh you know the diploma program on
selected sutures and chinese buddhism and i’m really new to the mahayana stuff you
know haven’t really studied much of it at all so that’s it was yeah it was a lot of information for me and i haven’t even
even read much of the course sutras you know uh that were that were talked about in there so
i’m pretty convinced that i’m i’m pretty convinced that mahayana is all about extraterrestrial
beings well that’s i mean that’s the beauty of it i i think because um
it just shows how vast and profound existence and reality can be you know
and you know i run with a lot of different metaphysical circles too so i’m versed in a lot of that stuff um so it’s
translating between different systems of metaphysics as well too while keeping in mind you know the
simile of the arrow right uh you know that one right we talked about that right you get um
the guy gets shot with arrow but before he wants it pulled out he wants to know what’s uh what is the arrowhead made of
you know who uh fletch flesh fletched the shaft of the arrow you know what bird did the
feathers come from he wants to know all this stuff but by the time he figures all that out
he’s dead from the arrow so that that’s what i think the buddhist metaphor was for the metaphysics that’s that’s that’s right stop the
blood it’s like floating you need to know exactly what you need to know for the suffering that’s why he only taught suffering
then again you know the parable of the leaves you know well where did he get that knowledge from you know
he obviously had a ton of that knowledge beforehand right you know he said you know what’s more numerous the leaves
in my hand or the leaves in the forest and leaves in his hand well that’s what he only taught but he my problem
my problem with all that discussion is that i i came from academia i taught university
for nine years so i understand why you need to talk about
you know when you talk about arithmetic algebra geometry calculus and then you know finally to
general relativity i i understand all that conversations how one always related to another that you know
before i we can talk about general relativity maybe we should just start with arithmetic you know and then of course
you know halfway through arithmetic some smart kid would say well what is this all about [Laughter]
so i i understand all that i i just think that um i i i i see it from both sides
and this this discussion hanayana is exactly that is exactly that is it’s uh you know so
so you’re looking at it it’s it’s really the parable of of the the blind
touching you know feeling the elephant and each one describing the elephant oh yeah classic you know so so you have
this two cam that talks about the the the the big vehicle in the little vehicle
you know except that the guy who you refer to as a little bit little vehicle says well we don’t know what you’re talking about we were here 300 years
before you guys [Laughter] so you must be talking about him
you know how that works right when you when you get in the argument and people are putting you down you say well no no you
can’t be talking about me
yeah it’s just uh you see from a westerner perspective like i said i just don’t i don’t i don’t get it i mean i
mean i can definitely see where they you know it’s kind of like um uh like a pissing contest right kind of
thing well the thing is that the thing is that i’m i’m i’m i’m struggling with all that now and
trying to digest all that because um master had this three-day um retreat on
the on zoom that was um uh uh probably like three four weeks ago
okay it was it was it was actually a memorial weekend i think yeah yeah was
it memorial labor i forgot which well i get those confused too yeah okay so whichever the long weekend and so
um a group of students from um uh los angeles had organized that so we
all trying to jump to that and there was a mandarin it was in mandarin which is tough for me but on the other hand we
we recorded it and then uh we actually um went through a lot of we did a lot of
work to put in the chinese subtitle okay so i had i had a lot of opportunity
to really you know like dive deep into his teaching and so so he’s he actually he actually
his his approach now is is he’s integrating what one would call uh hanayana versus
you know mahayana and in fact the story was that um i remember uh visiting a thai temple
once with him and the the um the abbott that we were supposed to
meet got stuck in traffic so we were just there with all the all the monks and and of course master speaks thai and so they
were conversing they were very happy to see a guy who who’s obviously not thai speaking
thai and master was very excited because he haven’t practiced thai in a long time so then came another one that looked just like
the other other or the other one except that it turns out that he doesn’t speak thai even though he’s he’s italian origin so
he was somebody who was born here and he speaks only english so he woke up to to master and says
oh you’re from you are mahayana right because you know he wears
different uniforms so master said no i am buddha yana
that’s a great story i remember that one yes and he does you know he says he practices more theravada at night and
mahayana during the day it’s a such a unique path and we’re i just feel so blessed and grateful to be a
part of it yeah except that except that in the end i think what he said is that it’s not a choice
huh it’s not like you can choose it’s not like there’s you know there’s uh door number one door
number two and you can pick whichever door you goes to and then it goes to the end no he actually came out and says no there
is no choice there’s no you can’t choose you have to start with the basic
in fact if you practice mahayana the idea that that the core of the teaching is above the four immeasurables
that actually leads you as straight because what happened is that um you you the idea is that the the four
immersibles you know you have you start with compassion living kindness and then and then empathetic joy and then and
ultimately get to equanimity the problem is that since you don’t have the equanimity
practice very quickly you’re you’re you become more attached
yeah so it’s like it’s like going up you know so so the i and i knew that i knew that and i knew that i mean from
very early on when i met master and i remember telling him i said master you know did you know that there are two kinds of uh life
savers you know like i said i used to take my kids to the swimming pool
and and so but you know i realized that it’s outside the swimming pool in the
especially in the temple there are two kinds of of life savers there’s the kind who knows how to swim
and it’s expert in swimming but didn’t want to save anyone
there’s this other kind who wants to save someone but he himself doesn’t know how to swim
you get so much so much in there denny um before i forget with that okay we should start okay okay all right
um hi everyone good morning good afternoon good evening welcome to
another episode of aua ask us anything the original aua
welcome again to josh josh depot um who is joining us the second time we we
are we last time was a month ago all right good afternoon josh how are you hey
denny what’s going on and um congratulations on all the the interviews you’ve done so far so i’m
glad i could play a small part in possibly some inspiration of what you’ve been doing with um
all the interviews and whatnot and yeah your continued dedication to dhamma buddha dhamma and
yeah especially the daily practice continued to do on zoom so you probably see that in the
show notes yeah yeah so we we we’re we’re uh we’re doing our best we know we’re
it’s it’s uh like i said last time is that it this epidemic this the pandemic
um which continues you know it’s it’s it only will only get worse as the months to
come and uh it’s what i said about marriage it doesn’t get better it just gets you get
more used to it so the pandemic gets worse but we get more used to it
so so you brought with you a bunch of questions so why don’t you pick one and how about we pick the easy one what
does master group stands for you know that’s probably one of the most um pressing ones anyway
and most unique and specific that you’ll probably not get anywhere else right so yeah what does
jiru mean okay so so so the name the full name is is sikh jiru
right so all the the the chinese tradition is such that when a person
become a monastic whether he’s a monk or none he he he has to um
uh uh what’s the word uh give up or or uh renounce renounce and when he he
actually so so so a lot of people think that becoming a monk just means that you renounce your family life
right and where in fact that’s the last thing you renounce so so there’s actually three steps you
renounce all your dukkha you know all your all your all your all your or your uh defilements or your um
uh hindrances at least you you declare a path to that the second thing you you
renounce and this is the part that perhaps is at least talked about in the western
world of buddhism is that you actually have to renounce samsara
you have to have to renounce uh reincarnation so again it’s it’s a question of making
a decision so that i don’t have to uh i’m working towards buddhahood
which means escaping samsara escaping reconnect and then finally you renounce
your family life and massachusetts actually have a very interesting take on that and he says no you don’t renounce your
family life so you can hide in the cage somewhere hiding a cave somewhere you can do that without
actually becoming a monastics right anybody can do that it says actually you renounce your family life so that you can dedicate
yourself completely to serving the community so he has a different tick on that so so
the chinese tradition is that when you do that you actually renounce your last name your family name
and so they always have the last name which is seek sik which which comes from sycamore
sycamore sycamore sycamore is the name of of our historical buddha once he became
buddha so he had a different name before and and that was his given name too and then
he was and then he and then people would then refer to him as as sycamore and sycamore reaction is two
part the first part meant is again his family a part of his family then and then the last part meant that he’s
he’s the elders he’s the he’s the he’s the he’s the the one who knows right so this it’s like
it’s actually so so one part actually represents compassion and the other part represents um wisdom
the point is that all monastics in the chinese tradition they take on the last name sikh and so so master’s
last name is actually sikh but his first name is is jiru or gu
and again that’s that you can break that into two parts the first word uh means continue
okay so so one thing that you have to know is that chinese language is very complicated um you cannot you cannot just take one
character and say that’s that’s that’s the meaning you can’t actually do that
and the meaning varies depending on what other word they conjugate with
and sometimes it the meaning also takes on a historical perspective as well so so example the
other day um in my sunday night dharma meeting with the
volunteers volunteers that we did for the for the prison and they were they were talking about
what does it mean to save all beings save all beings and so i i said well
actually the chinese word doesn’t mean safe the chinese word is actually the guide
so i use the example that that it’s a guy it’s the same word that we use if i were like the person who who rode
the sam the boat and i come to the shore of the river and i see you
standing there but i know that there is a must slide coming your way i cannot just grab you and put you on my boat thinking
that i was safe or being my job is not to say my job is the guy
you would have to agree to it first all right so anyway so chinese characters are very complicated you
can’t just take one but on the other hand g g uh the most common explanation of that is
to continue to continue now but keep in mind that that is the same among all of the
master stomach brothers so the chinese name always is most likely is two characters
the first one is common for people who are of the same generation
so knowing that you know what generation they are and who who is possibly their master
okay so this is true even among uh so like i have two younger brothers we all share the same first characters
okay okay now the second character again is very complicated um it could mean a bunch of things and but
but since we’re we’re we’re we are among friends you know so so it’s the same word that appear in one
of the 10 epitaph for buddha you know the buddha has like 10 different names that represent 10
different virtues and one of the one other one in in palais or in sanskrit is is uh takagata
i’ve heard it pronounced so so there’s actually two different um um
uh interpretation for that because it depends on the gatta is gata depending on if you
attach the a to gata or you attach the a to the previous word or you the a split
because a is opposite and gatta means to leave a kata means to come
so yeah yeah the one who comes well the one who comes uh you know so so
so the idea is that you and i come to this world but when we come we come with all the baggages
when buddha comes to the world he does not come with any of them so he comes well right and so so that that worked well
would be one way to interpret it masters you so so in a way it’s a very good name it’s it’s it’s as if he’s saying that i’m the
one continuing you know the the work of the buddha well yeah and that’s uh
i always thought this you know what why aren’t we called to talk why isn’t it called tatakataism you know uh takagata ism instead of
buddhism um it was that’s what he uh the historical buddha referred to himself when people ask who he was
it depends on the sutra that’s right is yeah so if you look at the the diamond
sutra that’s the only thing they refer to is sakata
either way yeah yeah yeah but but it you can’t really use one because all ten has different meaning
so for example we we talk about you know you mentioned about hanayana and so if you say
hanayana is the practice of the people in the southeast china southeast asia you know going from sri
lanka to to to burma and so forth then they don’t talk about buddhahood as much as they
talk about being arahan that’s right yep so han is one of the ten epithet too
exactly yep so before we transition into that um i’m going to address some of the things you said
um well and then to together it’s i also heard the um translation of when
the buddha referred to himself as tatagata it’s like um it means like i am thus and i say you
know who are you well i am dust i’m like this so he’s kind of more like a verb
than a noun right yeah okay so now it’s interesting the word play on uh
master giroud’s name uh shifu’s name uh seek you know that’s also the name of a religion
the scene well no no no no that’s complicated i know i know this is the word play this totally right you know how english spins
things right right right so in this case it’s yeah it’s the spelling is s-i-k
and the other one into spelling is s-i-n-g-h yeah yes it’s just it’s just the word play in
the puns in english i find uh amusing and there’s also a tree called the sycamore which is similar sounding to
um what you said too right [Music] um a sycamore and there’s plenty of
sycamores that grow around uh rivers around here to our creeks and then also i i like the uh idea of
guiding so much better than saving because saving seems to have like a lot of
um or can have some negative christian baggage for those that aren’t don’t consider yourself um christians or
are have been are getting either i don’t want to you know get in confidence you know obviously nothing against christianity
it’s i think it’s very supportive um i think buddhism actually is supportive of a lot of that stuff too
um it’s just that i like the guiding better because
maybe some other time will go into my um well no it’s actually you really so so again you know
sometimes those words um have the the true meaning of the words
is depends on the conjugation but then the meaning of the word can also have
depends on the historical um historical uh um uh historical interpretation so
so very very um famous story was about um the sixth patriot
and so the sixth patriot is an interesting person in that number one he he is the one that
actually um so so the sixth patreon means that there’s a first patriot which is buddhi
dhamma and then eventually get to the fifth patriot but in between they’re basically
like one off okay and then and then they very brief very a few years and then they transferred another one a few
and finally when they get to the fifth patriarch then then he started to really build up this chan practice or what is now called zen
practice and but it wasn’t until the sex patriarch that really took it and so there’s a saying that
it’s it’s it’s one stem five flowers because then you know it becomes five different branches and soto zen
and all that you know that and then eventually it took another thousand years before it before you know 800 years before they went to
went to uh japan you know but the very famous story about the sixth patriarch
and this explains you know kind of put some historical context to the word would it serve the guy
or or to to to to relieve or or to to rescue the very famous story was that
the sixth patriarch was actually illiterate and so um he he actually came to
the the monastery where the fifth patriots are and the faithful recognized him but he
also understand the dangers that he would be in because he’s such an enlightened person but yet he had no formal training
and so that could cause all kinds of problems with his other other student so he purposely pushed him to work in
essentially the kitchen and then one day he he had this
you know he asked him to come and so he came to his room and they the story was that they they were they
were transmitting his his you know his his wisdom and then when it’s all done then the fifth patriot was the one that took
the gossa which is the the uniform and the bow and he says now you know from now on you are the
sixth patriot but let’s get out of here because you’re now in in danger so they
they together they they went down to the bottom of the mount the mountain where the temple is
to the river and so the so the so the so the so the fifth patriot says let me
guy you across the river right which would be what that would be what
would you say because the sixth page i came from afar he doesn’t know that the area the fif the
fifth patriarch is the one that knows the area so he says let me guide you let me help you to cross the river
and so he had a very famous saying which is the sixth patriarch says well when i am
what’s the word what’s the opposite of enlightened when i am asleep when i’m asleep you guide me
now that i’m enlightened i would have to guide myself and it’s the same word they use in
the verses where it says you know how to um how to
uh what’s the word that i was using earlier how to save all beings so it doesn’t so so my
point is that it’s not safe it’s the guy but it’s more than that because think about it right so so the the fifth
patriarch put himself in the position where he would provide the manual labor
so he is so so so embedded in that word is a sense of service
a sense of so so so it’s very different from saving or being so saving beings had this
connotation you know that i’m here to save i you know you follow right yeah so in this case it’s more
like if you want to guide me you have to come from you would come from the angle says danny
i’m very humble i would want to provide that service to you i know the way
i’m not the expert but i know the way and if you’re willing come with me and together will go across
something like that see this is a great point that needs to be addressed and i’ve got um up eventually get to a blog
post where i have all these different questions about arhan versus or not versus well maybe
but arhan and bodhisattva you know in how they complement but also how the questions i have about
them since i’m i’m new to this but this is a key point for me because um you know
how do we help others without stepping on their journey you know what i mean because so what is
the perfect would you just describe is josh but that’s a very very important point because
because the buddhist teaching prevent us from knocking on doors ah that’s a good metaphor we can’t just
come to your house knock on your doors and say hey what do you think we can’t and and
keep in mind that all sutras are basically a record of the dialogue
between the historical buddha and his disciple
it’s always asked an answer as an answer right you notice that all the situations just cause there’s someone there’s a
discourse there’s just somebody in there who says master what do you think
there are very few exceptions there are actually very few exceptions where where where the buddha says well you
know this is what i feel like talking today very few exceptions most of them are asked and answered as an answer
very unique teaching style too because yeah and and then he redefined a lot of
term terminology of his day too yep now one of the questions you asked one of the questions you you suggest one
of the point the point of discussion success is is this whole thing about comma oh yeah so so this idea
let me set this up just a little bit it was such a popular topic in the classes i’m taking everybody’s so
fascinated by it and the western interpretation of it is obviously very misguided in popular culture anyway
yeah so so let’s start with a little literal translation of the word which i’ve heard
actually let’s do that but let me let me just kind of use that to finish off the discussions that we have about about guiding
so in fact we we it’s the idea that we shouldn’t teach unless the person is ready for the
teaching goes so deep that because we talk about karma karma the idea is
that you have your own karma and i had mine and so for me to you know jump into your face
and says you know here is i actually would perturb your karma actually i might
actually uh delay your path because now all of a sudden because of my interjection
you have this aversion to the teaching then you know instead of going you know
on your own you would have like a straight way and now you detour and that would be my fault
you know okay so so sorry sorry for interrupting you so
so um we have two important topics i’m not sure we can do all that today but
one one has to do with karma and one has to do with hanayana and you mentioned that maybe maybe maybe
uh karma should be a more urgent topic you think yes because i think even the dalai lama
said that that’s is if i’m getting this right that’s something that he wanted westerners to kind of really understand and comprehend
and i just think it’s such a misunderstood or misrepresented in western culture uh especially in
popular culture you know the common you know misinterpretation is oh that’s their karma right
oh that’s it’s karma which basically means you’re it’s it’s like a a system for
doing something bad i mean that is the the horrible oversimplified misunderstanding of it in popular
culture in the west and that i feel that needs to be rectified the thing is that it’s so
like i was saying it’s it’s a vast and profound teaching but it can also be quite simple uh with cause and effect
but actually i’m not um very schooled on this i want to have you give a what you did in the show
notes it’s a great rundown and give that um and then maybe i can talk uh the the
one that i feel more comfortable about talking about this part is intent that’s involved in karma but why
don’t you just give a whole like um a run-down overview whatever you feel important is important and then
uh you know i brought up is actually one of the imponderables which is um you know if you start
looking into every single detail and investigating all of it there’s a chance the buddha
said that you could go mad doing so although there’s also some very straightforward teachings
uh listing different types of karma that we can study so my question was basically you know
how do we um you know how do how do we understand it first and then how how do we study what we can
um you know safely um basically that yeah that’s that was
the question yeah i think i think that understanding comma is probably the the most important
discussion one can have with regard to buddha’s teaching
so so i i think i i always like to go back to history and i always like to go back to the time
and and what was the what was the historical context this is true if i want to study uh
buddha’s teaching or it’s true if i want to study jesus teaching
you know so in in jesus case it’s you know he is he’s a jew and he was basically born in a colony
and the colony was was uh was the the colonialists uh the rome romans and so there was a lot
of um social injustice between the conqueror who are the romans and then the people who are actually the
administrators which are the jews and then also the the people and so i rather than just like look at the bible
and i always question who wrote the bible as much as i questioned who wrote the sutra i would rather go back to the historic
history because i at least that i understand the history and i can see well forget you know jesus as the son of god
put that aside yes or no i don’t care that doesn’t matter but what was he trying to do what did he see
with his eye and what were you trying to do given his intellect i was i would do the same thing with the
historical buddha which is 600 550 years before the birth of christ
and now i asked myself well what was happening then in in north india and so one of the things
that i would point out is if you if you look at the sign the buddha’s sign
is identical to the one used by the nazis oh yeah except no the nazis is reversed
doesn’t it point the other way that’s what people try to say is that there one is one is one on one
no but if you visit enough temple you will realize that we will use it both directions but of
course we make the distinction just because we don’t you know otherwise but on the other hand we have to accept that and so forth
i mean now we don’t have the olympics this year but had we had the olympic this year one of the big thing in japan is that
they have to take down all those signs it just it just it causes problems with people you know i haven’t followed that
but maybe in fact i think like if you look at some of the stat the buddha statue
in mapa uh message you actually went to great length to never have that symbol huh well it’s so unfortunate because you
know a lot of times people in power that are negative they’ll they’ll invert a symbol or they’ll co-opt a symbol and
completely pervert it and invert it too yeah but but putting that aside the question is that why
why the simple well what i’ve heard is it’s a sun symbol
which is i don’t know i’m sure there’s all kinds of different things but that’s a yeah i don’t know it it’s a shorter because it’s the same symbol because
because hitler and and buddha share the same heritage
oh areas they’re both aryans okay and so so so so buddha was born 600
years before christ and about a thousand years before that maybe more maybe a few thousand years
before that was one migration of the aryans the migration of the aryan so so you
will notice that in india you have different shades of skin you have the lighter and the darker
this is true in iran and in egypt okay a lot of the the conquerors came with
the aryans and and so the question is that why was that so easy for them to conquer well because they have they have
advances in methodology that even today we don’t understand yes okay and so but in any case they
worship brahman and so when we talk about you know
atheists versus poly atheists versus mono atheists we we talk a great deal about the um
abraham religion which consists of catholics protestants and the muslims and so forth because their
common ancestor is jewish abraham that that we call that the monotheist that there’s only one god
but the aryans have only one god too and that’s that’s the that’s the the brahman the brahma
brahman king the maha brahman right so so so the aryans came to to um to india the
indian continent and the the original indians were much
darker skinned in fact they shared the same dna as the native the
origin the the the people in in australia because once upon a time
india and australia were one and so the people there have the same dna right so you have this this the stratification
of people conquerors and so forth so eventually they set up this this caste system and the caste system was
such that the people on the very top were the the the people who can have
a dialogue with their god which in this case a problem no different than the jewish
no different then you have the the royalties and then you have yes and then and then
and then then you have the the the the the the merchants and so
forth and then you have like the lower lower class right now keep in mind that all four
are still aryans so there’s a misunderstanding thinking that the natives are the lowest
no the natives don’t even count they’re below the four okay so to a
point where if the if one of the one of the lower one if they want to buy a uh uh uh food they would have a dish
where they drop the money into the dish and then they would throw the food on the floor they won’t touch them so that’s why it’s called untouchable
now the idea of comma starts there
the idea of karma actually starts there and the idea of comma is that if i am of the upper cast my
comma would be that i would come back as the upper cast that’s my comma and then if your comma is in the lower
cast then your your comma will be such that you will come back as that okay so
so when you say that there’s a min understanding of karma i i wouldn’t say that it’s a minor
listening i would say that it was the original understanding and if that’s your understanding that
you haven’t learned anything from from buddha what buddha did was they said no that can’t be the case
and so he was actually he was actually a social revolutionary
he was basically trying to undo the justice which was very deep
but what he did was that he wasn’t trying to overthrow anyone he was trying to pull the rock under
them which is that if you think that karma meant that no kama does not meant that okay so so what
does what does what does um what does kama mean in in in in in the buddhist teaching
so so he then talks about this dependent origination right so that’s a little too deep but
let me give you a much simpler example if you if you go out to your garden and
you want to plant tomato you have to start with the tomato seed
if you didn’t have the tomato seed you would never have tomato okay so you plant you plant the tomato
seeds and then now you have tomato well guess what the tomato have seeds
so it’s it never ends okay once you plant the seed it doesn’t end it just goes from there
but more important than that in order for that seed to become a fruit
you have to have the condition condition means that oh i have to have
to plant it first and if i plant on cement it will never grow so i have to find a soil
but not only that but you know i have the water i have to keep it away from the elements i have to
fertilize i have to spend time to you know remove the weeds and then i have to build a
a trellis you know for the for the i have to do all that in order for the seed to
become the fruit so the question is what is karma well
karma is both the seed and the fruit because karma is one of the eight
consciousness that makes up of our existence okay so
so you can talk about uh our existence in terms of the eight consciousness or you can talk about in terms of the five
standards they’re actually the same it’s just different ways of classifying so what what does it mean
when you classify it as as five standards well there’s the form and then there’s everything else right
so the form includes everything that is physical our eyes our nose our tongue our ear our
skin and our brain right and our brain that’s that’s what we call
the six cent store the six uh route
the consciousness is the electricity that was generated by these these organs okay so there’s there’s
there’s six there are six consciences that are associated with the form
so when my eye sees you you are the stimulus right so you’re the color you’re the
you’re the microwave or you’re the whatever it is that impinges on my eye and my eye generate electricity so so right away we
have these three different domains there’s a physics there’s a physiology
and then there’s the neurology so the the sixth of the consciousness has to do
with neurology the eye had consciousness the nose so the eye would be sight
the no the nose would be smell the tongue would be taste the the body would be touched and then
finally it goes into the brain the brain generates a what we call the mental action the mental relation
right so if i if i want to beat somebody up it starts with that before i actually
make it into a physical action there’s a mental action right so that that accounts for the five
the six consciousness now each of the consciousness can be both a seed or fruit it’s the fruit
when the eye interacts with with the outside world right in this case the cause and the
effect is such that the eye consciousness is the fruit is the effect however when the eye the ear the nose
collects all the data and it feeds it into the last organ which is the brain they are now the seed
there now the seed which then causes the final mental action which is the fruit
so cause and effect right causing an effect so what happened then what happened then well there’s the
seven consciousness eight consciousness so today we’re gonna talk about eight consciousness which is the kama so what
is comma it depends on what you want to talk about is it a seed or is it a fruit
so what does it mean well first of all go back to neurology neurology meaning that
consciousness is electrical okay so the universe
is all about electricity however we also know that when you have electricity you have
magnetism it’s physics you cannot have electricity
without magnetism so if i think that this is a piece of wire and that’s why we do like qigong and all
the things that like yijing jing and meditation all that is is actually playing with electricity
and magnetism because when we have blood flow it’s electricity it generates magnetic field and then the
magnetic field can couple into a different part of the body and causes you know a lot of phenomenon that we can
only witness when we’re in meditation but in any case when you have a thought the thought is electrical
it generates magnetic field and when you generate magnetic field it leaves a memory
it leaves a memory so comma in this case is just a memory
so for all the mental action that we have it leaves behind a memory
now now before we before we go on this is actually very scientific
so so what does that movie call i just the name just escapes me um talked about
time travel there was that movie talk about time travel oh there’s a lot of hollywood movies
about time yeah the one i’m thinking of the one i’m thinking of so he so anyway
he he he is the one that um i know i wish i would i’m more prepared so so you would see all that in
in in you know the physicists talk about all that that that that you can you can do time
travel but of course in the only physics only allow traveling to to the past it doesn’t allow traveling
to the forward okay so so anyway i’m going off tangent but the point is that
comma in this case is a memory it’s a memory so for all the things all
the good things you’ve done all the bad things you’ve done it leaves behind a a memory now the same karma can also be
a seed because every time you have a mental action
the external stimulants are from the the eyes the nose the ear
but there’s also internal stimulant which is the comma for the same reason
that when you generate electricity electricity leave behind magnetism
then the next time you want to generate when you want to generate electricity you actually need magnet
you can’t generate electricity without magnetism you cannot the two goes another
electricity generate magnetism which is a memory okay meaning that something get magnetized right
and it’s the magnetizations that allows you to generate electricity now i’m going to throw you curveball and
we’re talking all about mental activities specifically thoughts or electrical electricity so when we
when we quiet the mind or this is you know like maybe a mind of an our heart that what i hear is they’re only
they can still think but they they only think if they if they want to think so there’s other forces too in physics
so with outside the mental sphere you have like vibrational energy instead of in
as opposed to electrical chemical magnetic and um and frequency stuff you have
vibrational and then you also have a radio radiation right so these are other types of energy that
i won’t go into some of the metaphysics that people say about electromagnetism versus other
types of energy and you know what’s supposed to be more natural and whatnot but that’s a whole other thing another curveball would be
these drugs that they give to um people in surgery um are these medical drugs that will
help them forget certain uh procedures yeah but none of that has to do with the mind
none of that has to do with the mind so we’re we’re we’re actually confusing what mind is
so the when buddhists talk about mind they talk about beyond material that’s another thing i was
going to ask about you know when the psychiatrists talk about mine and when they when you talk about how
you can induce you know uh they’re talking about the brain
right and that’s just a physical manifestation but now you did you did say that it was
linked to um uh what was it well the question i have the formless realm because
didn’t you say that consciousness was dependent on the brain so if you have a formless realm there’s
still consciousness involved in the form oh yeah absolutely this is kind of off the deep end and we’re not really talking about this no but yeah we want
to talk about that we’ll talk about that but but before we talk about that we need to address the issue which is
the sort of common discussion the common understanding of comma because the one thing people will say is that hey it’s
in your comma that’s you know what do you want it’s in a comma so so we have to this is really important because
because what is what is buddhist teaching buddhist teaching is this
in that you are your own you can you’re the only one who can control your own destiny
okay what that means is that for everything that happens you need a
condition if you want to call if you want to change the effect
given the initial conditions then you can change you can actually
change the effect by changing the condition so in other words going back to
to the the thinking of the time which is which comes from north india
and it comes from this this this overbearing caste system which is which is really a political system
disguised as a religious system but that’s all always that’s always what religious religion is
is that it’s something else disguises as religion which is true if you study history that’s how catholicism started
because the emperor needed something to to to in his arsenal anyway the point is that
what what is saying is that no that’s not true that’s not true just because you were born in a higher
caste you can come back in a lower caste or just because you’re in lower cash
you can someday become the higher cash because you can control your destiny that’s why you see amma buddha was the
only master at the time who accept students from the lower cast
yes because everybody else just throw up their hands to throw their hand says there’s nothing you can do you know the
best you can do yeah that’s why i like the definition action because what you what what what we think um
speak and act matters it’s gonna have it has a potential um outcome
it’s not maybe not immediately but down you know fruit down the road so yeah if we can
and that’s where that’s where we really have a huge choice is how we frame a situation how we view it right the first
first uh of the eighth full noble path and then how we respond to it yeah those we have constant choices in
life and those choices matter and will can uh work either way will they cause or
condition future um outcomes um yeah maybe both right yeah so so you you mentioned the the the
arahans the the the the arrowheads are there are the people who have practiced to a point
where they they escaped samsara and so how do they do that
they don’t do that by filtering the comma see there’s no filtering right there’s no filtering you can’t
just say hey here’s my comma you know i’ll pay i’ll pay you you know what’s your hourly wage and you know clean that for me you
can’t just you know you can’t just say say you know three minutes say hail mary and be done with it you can’t
that’s not what we believe you cannot cleanse there’s because it’s in your commas and therefore it’s a comma
because it’s it’s cosmic so what can you do if you couldn’t filter well you can
you can let it settle you can do sentimentation so so the whole the word chan
is abbreviation for the word chana with chinese which you say which is it
comes from the word ghana that’s sentimentation that’s actually what what it means is that is that we
learned we learned to use a body as a as an early warning system so that
when one of the bad seed acoustical seed comes out from a comma
we recognize it and we don’t follow it but also not uh pretend it’s not there
and right and not pretend that it’s not there yeah so this is this is this is something very important in that in that people misunderstood what what
what meditation means and they think that it’s all about just sitting there not think about anything
now the problem is that most people who do most people who practice meditation get benefit from just not thinking
you know they get benefit from just not thinking so so it’s very easy for them to say oh that’s so that’s what meditation is it’s like
going to the going going to a a tank where you’re deprived
of your sensation you know they think that’s meditation in fact meditation is not that at all
meditation is has that calming effect slowing it down but fully aware of your
surrounding fully aware of the surroundings not only does the mind quiet
yeah but we actually get there the the capacity for you know um
greater expanded awareness increases as well [Music]
so i want to i want to make sure that if there’s anybody out there who’s listening and and comma
the sort of the misunderstanding of comma or or what we call misunderstanding or the
kind of a that’s the original definition of comma buddha
came along and redefined that and rather than saying that comma is
like the conditions unchangeable conditions that no matter what you do
that’s who you became no it’s not that comma is the initial condition
okay but you can change the outcome by changing the boundary condition
by changing the what condition well in engineering we call the boundary boundary condition okay boundary
conditions you know so this is not also this is also to not confuse it with
trying to um line up external conditions just right and thinking that’s going to make
us happy to because a lot of people mistake that in their life too right if i can just get you know my life in
order on the outside then everything’s going to be okay if i can just you know get a nice place to live
a good job and um you know and the wife and kids and just have my six-pack on the sunday
everything’s going to be smooth sailing well i mean to it maybe to a certain extent but
the thing is that that’s a recipe for in the long run that’s not gonna that’s
not going to bring ultimate fulfilling happiness right well
i i wouldn’t go as far as saying that that money doesn’t buy you happiness okay so i’m not that person
so so i i was asked that question one time yeah right you know what what makes you happy
poor or rich and i said i’ve been both i’ve been both i’ve been very very poor i’ve been very
very rich so i can tell you the difference but i said before i explained the difference i said
that is again another fundamental teaching from buddha because if you go back to what we call five scandals are
empty this is another thing that is this misunderstood maybe we can talk about that in the future but very briefly in this case emptiness
doesn’t mean empty doesn’t mean emptiness mt in this case is empty of something in other words
everything can be changed right because because it’s empty of of of rules and regulations
right so if a person who kills someone can still become a good person
a person who’s always been following the rule you know uh example example every person in the
society can one day make a mistake and became a murderer anything can happen
it all has to do with the condition and so so for me five standards are empty is
ultimate freedom but what does freedom mean freedom means
choice if you don’t have if i i’m not giving
you choice there is no freedom i can choose and that’s the freedom so the question is what is freedom in in
material sense well material sense means that you now have resources
and then you can choose to do this or you can choose to do that right so it’s very hard for a poor person to
choose his material okay but on the other hand
that freedom could be on in in the spiritual level yes freedom from yeah so so
the problem is that we can’t really choose we don’t know how to choose we don’t have we don’t have the tool and so the
buddhist teaching is all about giving the tools so that now you know the choices because if you
didn’t know the choices there’s nothing to choose from and even if you know the choices but you didn’t
have the skill the training to choose then there’s nothing you can do then it’s as if you didn’t have any choice
discernment yes yeah so buddhist teaching it’s all about choice it’s all about
freedom it’s just that we take it from the material level to more of a spiritual level
so now going back to the question is that what what buys you happiness
so so i was asked that question and you know do you find yourself being a happy person when you’re poor or being happy
person when you’re when the rich and i said wait a minute you know i’ve been both but let me tell you this i said this all comes down to
a choice if you’re poor you can choose to be happy
but if you’re rich you can choose to be miserable [Laughter]
okay well yeah your basic needs are covered you ha everybody has to have basic needs covered right yeah because if you don’t
have your basic needs it’s miserable exactly and then a lot of times no matter how much you have people always want more
you know you could have very little money and there’s people not necessarily not everybody but i mean
even super rich people they don’t have enough right but yeah yeah this is we i mean pretty
much everybody agrees that we can’t really do much spiritually if your basic needs aren’t covered you know
that’s right that’s right that’s right um i just want to go into our uh just rattle off some of the how
profound this karma stuff is like it’s got six causes acting causes simultaneously
arising causes congruent causes equal status clauses driving
um i’m sorry causes not clauses ripening cause so all these are stuff that people can
look up um later and then there’s four conditions causal conditions immediately preceding
conditions focal condition conditions dominating conditions and then
lastly the five type of results ripened results results that correspond to their cause
dominating results man-made results results that are states of being parted so all those are teachings that we’re
given but i mean it goes way way way beyond all that stuff and also not everything
is karma either there’s other forces um in the world that we’ve that we studied about that i i can’t
really speak to because i’m not that well-versed but not everything that we see that happens in life is a
karmic um uh effect or a karmic um um see you know a cedar of fruit
right so there’s other forces at play as well right [Music] now the other the other thing when i was
looking into this the jainist religion which one i know hardly anything about they have a huge
long list of all this detailed teachings on karma and it’s interesting historical buddha’s
interactions with with that religion and the founder of that um what was it uh
okay so the other thing i would ask going way back to the beginning of this the aryans so where did the aryans come
from that came into india where did they come from i don’t know exactly because i know that it’s it’s
not um it’s it’s in the north it’s in in the north probably what we would refer to
today as the middle of europe which would be you know not exactly russia
but not exactly you know germany eastern europe then eastern europe kind of um in
you know that area that area i would i would i would probably think maybe part of it
is is uh it’s it’s a cold very very you know so so again it it the migration was the result of of
of climate climate disasters and it’s just that it was the reverse at
that time it was not the warming but the cooling down of the plant so where they live becomes
uninhabitable and so they have to move away yeah one of the other things i found fascinating when we were studying this is you know how uh in the
buddhist time historically it goes back to um you know well today it’s hinduism before that it was uh the vedas stuff
based on the vedas and then before where where did the vedas come from well if i’m getting this right it came from
um from iran and persia area which was influenced by zoroastrianism and that’s something i haven’t studied
either and it’s and i have you know i haven’t even if you just keep going back and back and back yeah and i think that’s pretty a mystical um
uh religion isn’t i’m not i don’t know anything really about zoroastrianism but i just thought i’m always interested in the origin of
things and tracing back as far well when you when you when you go back far enough you realize that one thing that they all in common
they all have in common including the the traditional abrahamic religion
is that they’re all vegetarians huh i’m trying to think of in the bible
now for example in india in india the the
the many of my students when i was teaching at ucla when my students came from india and they
were born with a vegetarian because their family go back many many
generations were all vegetarians because they they believe that they’re the descendants of the brahmana king
ah okay and if they if they’re not vegetarians they can never go back
so they you know so a lot of times when they don’t cross marry between cats it’s because
the the kind of a generic pool you know they believed of the purity of the generic pool and so
many of them are vegetarians so the jainism you mentioned the jainism the jainisms
they are vegetarian to the extreme where they wouldn’t even eat potato any root
vegetable they won’t eat because they believe that that by eating them you’re actually killing and that’s another thing i want
to talk about when i said the intent so that really affects the karma you know there’s a
the classic thing is if you’re if you’re walking and you step on an ant uh and don’t see it then it’s it’s not
going to have a karmic bearing yeah but if you could deliberately go out and say i want to kill that for this reason
that’s going to have an effect same way with like if even if things as small as washing out your bowl if it has little
food scraps if you toss that on the ground this is in the sutas with the intent um to help the insects you know
live and carry on life that can have positive benefits compared to this yeah it’s all mental it’s all mental religion
so so just because you didn’t actually hurt anyone just thinking about it already causes bad karma
but then again that’s a tricky question too because you know um we talk about not self
teachings well who actually had that thought you know how how do we discern between well
sometimes if we’re meditating and you just this thought pops into our heads like well i didn’t think that where did
that come from that’s that’s silly you know um you know um things like that happen you’re like um
i wouldn’t have thought that why why is that thought there yeah well let me let me finish let me finish
with the vegetarian story so so the christians are many of the christians are vegetarians the 12
adventists 12 12-day adventists they’re vegetarians why is that well what what is what what
are the things that the twelfth day adventists do well first of all they they they worship on saturday sabbath
the day of sabbath because the sunday was the first day of the week
sunday was the day that god created the earth and the and the air and the
and all that sunday was the day saturday well sunday was the day of rest no
saturday is a day of rest huh okay well one of the days was nothing so i thought that was yeah
saturday it’s about sabbatical okay that’s what it means it’s a seven day it’s a day of rest so when i was a professor you know we
take sabbatical every seven years i say okay that’s where the word come from okay so what the holiday became sunday
well because when when when christianity was taken to europe
and and at first all the christians were were were were
killed right they were kept thrown into the lion right but eventually the king one of the king decided that they
he’s you know he wants to promote that religion but at that time the worship of sun god was very important so he kind of
changed that so that the day of worship was a sunday just so that people can but but constantine in the
council of nicea yeah but but if you if you read the bible if you read the bible the book of
genesis talks about how on this on this on the sixth day god created adam
and he gave him very specific instructions and because all along there was a distinction between creating
plants that have fruit and plants that were just grain oh yeah and or just grass so he gave very
specific instructions he says those fruits are for you those grains
and grass are for the animals and the animals are your friend
so now don’t eat them well then then there’s an interpretation
that you’re the caretaker of the um or you know masters over the the animal
life on so and then the breath in the bible is you know that’s how man was created in the bible right and that how
important that is in buddhism as well right so that’s a very fascinating topic but yeah we’re we’re winding down here and
also i just wanted for anybody if it’s listening that’s first time uh master giroud the very first question
is um the the abbots and um monk and um um venerable
in shifu at uh mid-america buddhist association where sometimes i practice and study and he’s
got um temples all over the place too right denny or how would you you described them last time as our
mutual dharma master as well so
i’m sorry i’m sorry i got distracted yeah yeah so so he has that’s right so so so he’s he’s
um the buddhist teaching is the buddhist teaching is such that they don’t call it their
home it’s not a home you know so it’s not like he belongs to a temple it’s not
that it’s not in fact the chinese word for for his presence comes from two characters one has to do
with the the stake that they carry and the other one has to do with like it’s almost like
the same word that we use when when we used to have the pony express okay and you you take you know
so there’s always these stops that you have to make like a relay or yeah yeah the relay so
so so the the idea is that he’s he’s walking around with his his dharma stick
and he’s just making temporary stops okay so the one so when we say maba which is which is what josh is most
familiar with it’s the place where he happened to be today right but it’s not his permanent home he’ll be
worth the first one to tell you that he has no permanent home okay but having said that he actually is
the abbot for three other temples two of them is in in chicago one of them is in san francisco
where i often go up before the pandemic of course but then he he he regularly teaches in
four other temples so yeah so he’s taiwan is one of them taiwan uh texas uh china you know
malaysia various first places he traveled he used to travel i would tell you back back the days when he
when he traveled he i would i would say this i would say he spent one third of his time in st louis and almost
98 percent of that one-third is he’s a farmer basically oh handyman oh he’s too busy
working because that’s his i tell you what the teachings i got through that through him i can’t really even uh describe so um it
seems a little silly but i have to tell you i first time first time i uh rising lewis i he he hasn’t finished that bulldozer’s
house yet yeah and i didn’t quite know anyone i didn’t play so he saw me doing this he said
well i need to put this guys to work so he gave me this this sand sender and
and then he said okay send this down but don’t make it too smooth and so i’m just like sanding and sending and then you
know that my hands are vibrating and then i have to stop and touch make sure it’s not too smooth and in retrospect he was teaching me
the mindfulness of the feeling you’re trying
[Laughter]
well i really enjoyed this josh likewise not a good one another good one another good one all right well i guess
we’ll see you and see you all next month next month yeah last tuesday of
the of the month i think that’s how that’s what we are now yeah last time we weren’t sure
okay thank you josh thank you for spending time with me well thanks for recording this and
putting out the documents and invites appreciate it okay bye denny
bye
Integrating Presence 
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