Questions about Karma

lol, okay thanks Brian. Anyone else?

IMO, If the subconscious mind doesn't discriminate between actions or imagination, then both intentions and actions would leave impressions. That is one reason why ritual is an important part of healing traditions. Whatever anyone chooses to believe is accepted as truth in the subconscious and shapes their awareness 'filter', shapes brain pathways, turns gene switches on/off, etc., because thoughts are living things. The subconscious doesn't judge what anyone chooses to believe. Since everything is relative, what may appear to be a 'negative' in an 'advanced' practioneer, may actually be a great teaching from another perspective.

Sorry, been quite busy lately...
Just a quick response on some of the above comments; from
teaching notes from a teaching by Geshe Dakpa Topgyal (http://www.scdharma.org/portal/teachings/showstory24.htm)

Binding factors
The four binding factors are the base, the intention or motivation, the execution of an action, and the completion of an action.
1. Base. The base could be the recipient. In the act of killing,
someone is killed, a human being, an animal, and this victim is the
base.
2. Intention. When you’re walking on the grass, it’s very likely that
you will step on insects you don’t see, hidden in the blades of grass.
You may kill an insect, but you didn’t intend to kill.
Intention falls under three types of delusion: attachment, anger, or ignorance. If you’re killing an animal for the meat, for example, you could be guilty of attachment or desire. A human being might be killed because of anger or jealousy, a motivating factor that manipulates the mind and its thoughts.
Killing may also occur through reckless or mindless behavior. An action is completed without the consequences imagined, but the possible negative consequences are ignored. The person acting thinks, "Whatever happens, I don’t care."
3. Execution. The base exists; intention exists, motivated by
attachment, anger, desire , jealousy. And then comes the actual act. The act is manifested in body or speech. Killing or stealing are examples of actions manifested by the body. Lying or divisive speech are examples of actions manifested by speech.
4. Completion. Once the action is fully manifested through body or
speech, and there is a sense of gratification, the act is complete. A
person kills or steals with intention. The completion of the act gives rise to a sense of satisfaction, "Well, I did it," instead of a sense of regret or remorse. The act is done; there is a sense of gratification or satisfaction; this is completion.
If one of these four factors is missing, then automatically the karma is incomplete or weak. The karma will not be experienced full-force.
However, weak karma can become strong through repetition.
Some negative actions are less serious than others. Divisive speech, for example, is less serious than killing. But if you do one of these lesser negative actions over and over throughout your life, you eventually accumulate a lot of strong bad karma.
The four factors that make karma complete or incomplete affect the power of individual karma. It is worse to kill than to talk badly about someone, so the force of karma is not the same. But the fact that you may say bad things all the time could cause you to accumulate a lot of bad karma. Bad karma can become strong through repetition, through repeating a bad action day after day.

This corresponds to what I was taught on karma. So apparently it does make a difference whether we just think about doing something or really acting it out. (Not that a negative thought is positive of course, but it is not 'complete karma'.)

As far as I know, Buddhism does not recognize 'subconscious thought' simply because it presents a contradiction. Either there is consciousness or there is not, no such thing as consciousness that is not conscious - if you understad what I mean.

Negative actions are defined as negative because the result of such actions is unpleasant, suffering, painful etc. Positive actions are defined by their pleasant results like pleasure, bliss, joy, fun etc. The mindstream does not decide what is positive or negative, it just carries the 'black' and 'white' potentials into the future, like a person carrying black and white pebbles in a backpack.

To go quickly into your original questions:
1. only really after the action, unless no action follows the intention, in which case there is an incomplete karmic seed
2. No. However, it is said that karma expands; as if it grows and grows unless we do anything against it (like purification or experiencing the result)
3.An intention is wanting to do something, a thought is not at all necessarily an intention: I can think, hey that is a nice dog, without any intention of doing something with that thought. Only things like Í want to play with that dog is an intention - just like in normal language I would think? For the rest see 1.

Does that help?

Excerpt: When we have a thought, our brain produces amino acids that are strung together to create a peptide. This peptide then travels throughout the body vibrating in a certain way until it finds a specific receptor site on a cell that is vibrating in the same way. The peptide then binds to the cell receptor and deposits its information, causing chemical changes in the cell. If we look at this from a wider view, our thoughts literally orchestrate changes in our body. The thoughts you are thinking create peptides and receptor sites for their specific energy or chemical communicator. So for example, by thinking positive and happy thoughts you can create positive and happy receptors and ligands throughout your body, and the same thing goes for negative thoughts and emotions. However, it is ill advised to think negative thoughts as the ligands released from them actually lower the activity of the immune system. ...Also, repressed emotions are actually stored in the body and unconscious mind and memories are held in their receptors. By repressing emotions we can literally create an ongoing illness and/or negative view of life.
The good news on a biochemical level is that receptors are not stagnant! They can change vibration according to the peptides released, meaning there is always a biochemical potential for change and growth, even if we are feeling 'stuck' emotionally!
Scientific research shows us that the stimulation to goodness, to compassion, even just being exposed to others doing good deeds signals the brain to tell the body that it is in a safe environment, which actually increases the activity of our immune system! So, random acts of kindness really do make a difference in healing the world!
heatherswholehealth.blogspot.com/

I love what you wrote about karma on this forum, Rudy, you are very knowledgeable. It is enjoyable to read it.

I think Mandala was reacting to your saying that Buddhists don't have a word for subconscious, and it sounds like you are saying you don't believe in subconscious because it is a contradiction. I have heard Tibetan teachers use it and refer to it, though, and I am wondering what you would say in its place? There is always a lot going on inside a human mind that they are not aware of, even Gods have a hidden aspects. How do you refer to that? What are dreams?

Where is hell? Where are the Buddha realms? Aren't they inside us? I suppose the Western mistake is to assume the reality of the individual and their subconscious, but Jung presented a collective subconscious that was very interesting.

I think that observing dreams, random thoughts, perceptions of ourselves by others, anything that can help us to know ourselves better is good. For me these all are chances to glimpse parts of my mind I am not familiar with consciously yet, Even though there is a lot of consciousness at work, a lot of mental (and often energetic) activity, I am blind to it. All of this, high or low, is what can be meant by the term subconscious in the West.

In my experience the discussion of the mechanics of karma, while interesting and perhaps even necessary, does not necessarily accomplish the goal of improved behavior. While it may lead to a greater confidence in actions and effects it may also lead to more questions and confusion, since some of them are not self-evident.

I believe most Buddhists can’t recite the detailed rules from memory which surely makes it difficult, really impossible, to evaluate their actions prior to commitment. In fact, even if one were to memorize the entire treatise on karma it would usually not help in the moment since by the time the evaluation occurs the actions are frequently committed even if only mentally (it might mitigate actually carrying out certain deeds).

I believe the intense scrutiny of our mental processes focusing on the nature of our thoughts, especially during but also after meditation, have a much better impact on our behavior, which is the primary goal. It is through this process that we gain a real-time sensitivity to our propensities and predispositions and create an “alert system” as early as possible in our minds so that we can avoid even the slightest negativities. This is a most effective reconstruction of our habitual tendencies that I believe is invaluable. As with other meditations at first it is simply an inferential understanding but eventually becomes a more critical automatic reaction that results in 2 major benefits.

The first benefit of course is the avoidance at the most fundamental level of all negativities. With this accomplished all other practices are secondary since through this we create the causes for all other beneficial conditions, such as gaining a precious human rebirth, meeting an excellent spiritual teacher and all other realizations leading right up to Buddhahood.

The second benefit is less obvious initially but the generation of a low-level awareness and assessment of our tendency for negativities highlights the involvement of our perception of an inherently existent self in every instance. It becomes clearer and clearer how every single negative thought is actually 100% predicated upon an inherently existent self. For me this has been transformative. When I see how every single negative thought is generated from a perspective that requires a perception of “Jeff” from his own side I get a real sense of where the true enemy lies, which is not the subject of my anger/jealousy/etc. Understanding and identifying this truth and seeing the connection at this level can be a major benefit and motivation in our determination to gain an inferential realization of selfless. This understanding ties into the second and third Noble Truths in a way that I find full of meaning. I pray to continue to move relentlessly in this direction through perseverance, purification and building merit.

It is not only that what we think, intend to do, then do
and then enjoy or regret has an impact on our mindstream, Graham.

I am utterly convinced that everything that is going on in our mind
each moment has an impact on the whole universe in this very moment.

Tamara

Maybe. It is my feeling that the allure of samsara is simply too strong, that without an understanding of our actions and how they impact others, we will continue to be pulled into its powerful draw and creating more and more suffering. Meditating and practicing compassion is nice, but how long will these behaviors last without an understanding of karma? Conversely, with a true understanding of karma, how could one ever commit a negative action again, knowing full well you will experience its results?