[…] Second World War, and was quite surprised to find out that many of them bought into the propaganda and regarded the war machine as the instrument of karma, which is exactly how the Christians stylized themselves in the Crusades. And this is just utter nonsense. Whenever you start feeling that you are the instrument […]

[…] but on the scale of what we had to deal with … Ken: The alternatives. Chuck: The alternatives. This seemed the best. So whether it sets a karma in motion or something like that, I don’t know. Ken: You are going to be born in the hungry ghost realms for eons. [Laughter] Dusty … […]

[…] is a metaphorical description of the human and gods realms. Where everything is kind of okay but you don’t know how to act so you accumulate bad karma. And this throws you into the pits of conditioned reactivity and so forth. Touching what is true Ken: So, in Wake Up to Your Life, I […]

[…] fair to say the culture of India from which these teachings came—there was an overarching view of the world, a cosmology, an understanding of how things worked, karma, and so forth, which everybody accepted. And any inequities that showed up in that were regarded as the result of natural law, “That’s just how things […]

[…] of the teacher. So, it’s something you can look at. Of these four who is the greatest benefactor? When we are in the obscuring darkness of the karma of afflicting emotions, we have no opportunity even to see the face of a superior spiritual master, so, how could we attend one? The Jewel Ornament […]

[…] the Kriya tantra where there are very definite prescribed rituals. But you’re giving a ritual significance to everything. Student: Are you making a distinction between that and Karma yoga where the yoga is of single-mindedly doing one thing, one task so as to not bring in discursive thought into your life? Ken: Well that […]

[…] belief. Ken: Yes. J.P.: I’m grateful for that because—not that I don’t do this—but it’s liberating to not have to explain all these terms, the cycle, and karma. But trying to understand the experience of what you come across in certain instances. Ken: You find this helpful. J.P.: Yes. Very much so. Ken: There’s […]

[…] to life, there is structure and so forth. And it is subject to disruption at any time because of impermanence. The order you can view as the karma element. The disruption is the impermanence element. And we live in this absolute paradox which, in traditional terms, is we’re definitely going to die and we […]

[…] I was faced with this myself when I was writing Wake Up To Your Life and I had this one chapter which was very problematic—chapter 5 on karma. And up to this point I carved out a certain amount of time but I continued to see students individually while I was in the process […]

[…] level of attention. Technically this is known as emergent phenomena or emergent abilities in the language of evolution and complex adaptive systems, but the whole working of karma is much more an evolutionary process than it is a strict cause and effect process. So at each stage, whatever you’re doing makes other things possible, […]

[…] way, so that one can relax from the inside out. You’ve worked through those experiences, and you do that through meditations such as death and impermanence, and karma, and taking and sending, and the development of compassion, the four immeasurables, all of those kinds of things. Then another thing that we do is a […]

[…] takes. Ken: Yeah, but what brought him to that? Chuck: Well, his concern for being in samsara. Ken: [Acknowledges answer]—but he had— Chuck: His concern for the karma that he’s generated for the next life. Ken: Yeah, he had to go through a few things to get to this point didn’t he? Student: All […]

[…] the Everything Exists school. Now, one of the things that became very clear to me when I was writing Wake Up to Your Life, the chapter on karma, is that the first two or three times I was trying to write that chapter I—it was very, very difficult because I found myself writing a […]

[…] awakening to the impermanence of all things becomes manifest, while at the same time our activity manifests our recognition of the law of cause and effect. ( Karma) In this routine matter of preparing tomorrow’s gruel as this evening’s work lies the key to the attitude necessary for coping with this absolute contradiction of […]

[…] with the idea of memories, of transitory and indelible memories. And of course the Buddhist approach to our lives is one built upon memories. We call it karma. We do something in the past, and it has results in the present. Our minds are at any one point to the extent that we’d like […]