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The World Through Zen Eyes Podcast
What we do?
Once a week we take a look at the going-ons of the world and say something about ‘em.
The goal?
None, really. Just trying to make heads and tails of the great world roar of Ooommmmmm.
Why?
To try ‘n keep a modicum of personal sanity. And stay off both the meds and the cool aid.
The point?
Points are sharp and therefore violent. We just go around, and round….and round.
Disclaimer:
The views, perspectives, and humor of the speakers and guests of this podcast do not necessarily represent the those of any associated organizations, businesses, or groups, social, religious,cultural or otherwise. The entirety of the podcast is for entertainment purposes only. Topics discussed and views expressed do not constitute medical advice. As the saying goes “Opinions are like bellybuttons, everybody’s got one”.
The World Through Zen Eyes Podcast
Ep. 16 - The Tapestry of Karma Extends Beyond What You Can See (karma part 2)
FAN MAIL - Send us a comment or a topic suggestion
Have you ever wondered why bad things sometimes happen to good people? Or why some experiences seem to repeat across generations? Our exploration of karma goes far deeper than the oversimplified idea of cosmic punishment you might be familiar with.
Karma, simply meaning "action," represents a sophisticated framework for understanding the complex web of cause and effect that shapes our lives. In this second part of our series, we unveil the multidimensional nature of karmic consequences—some visible, some hidden beneath the surface, some immediate, and others unfolding across lifetimes or even affecting future generations.
We delve into the crucial distinctions between individual and collective karma, illustrating how we're all passengers on the same boat yet experiencing different accommodations. When disaster strikes, the wave affects everyone regardless of status, yet our individual karma determines how we uniquely experience that collective event. This understanding liberates us from unnecessary judgment and prejudice while opening doors to compassion.
Perhaps most transformative is our exploration of changeable versus unchangeable karma. While some conditions remain immovable—like chronic illness or imprisonment—we always retain freedom in our perception and response. Just as a man imprisoned on a tiny stool survived by taking mental journeys, we can transcend even the most challenging circumstances through spiritual awakening.
Throughout our conversation, we share profound wisdom about navigating life's complexities with greater awareness. When we stop obsessing over tracing each effect back to its original cause and instead wake up to the present moment—the only point where change is possible—we discover a path toward liberation from unnecessary suffering.
Ready to transform your relationship with life's challenges? Listen now and discover how seeing the world through Zen eyes can reveal the invisible threads connecting all existence, bringing peace even amidst life's greatest trials.
Dr. Ruben Lambert can be found at wisdomspring.com
Ven. MyongAhn Sunim can be found at soshimsa.org
Regarding the World Through Zen Eyes. The depth, insights, wisdom, perspective and scope of these podcasts cannot be overstated. I feel I grow with each one I hear. Each is a treasure. The topics are explored with humor, warmth and accessibility. I highly recommend them. You'll be glad you tuned in, I sure am.
Speaker 2:Welcome back to yet another episode of the World Through Zen Eyes podcast. I am Myung An Sunim here with Dr Ruben Lambert and we are karmically bound to be back here again. To be back here, again with part two of the karma episode. In fact, I wonder what our listeners think about doing series.
Speaker 3:That's a good question, but you know there's a way for us to find out.
Speaker 2:That's right If you are listening, you know what to do. Send us fan mail let us know, leave some comments.
Speaker 2:Leave some comments, leave some topics. I mean, there is so much information and this is not some ego trip of trumpeting our kind of greatness, but there is so much information we do meander through various topics and if there are things that are further to be explored, the direction from the audience is, of course, a welcome and a nice thing. And a nice thing, as we initially mentioned, it's difficult to sort of decide by ourselves, for ourselves, what we're gonna talk about, although we'll do it.
Speaker 3:But it's the traditional Zen style right the student asks a question and the teacher responds that's right. Yeah, Because in Zen, or in Zen Buddhism actually all Buddhism we have 84,000 sutras. It's a very vast universe out there. What part of the tree are you asking about, Right what? Do you want? To talk about. What do you want to talk about? So let us know and we'll give you something from the Zen perspective.
Speaker 2:So karma, We've established op being karma, simply meaning action, opjang being a container, the kind of storehouse of our karma. So now that we got that, we know about the various cause and effect and seeds and fruition of karma, so we had hyon-li-num-kwa.
Speaker 3:The table example.
Speaker 2:The table right hyon-li-num-kwa, hyon-li-num-kwa. So. Action on the table. Outcome on the table. Action on the table. Outcome under the table. Action under the table. Outcome under the table. Action under the table. Outcome above the table. So under the table. Outcome under the table. Action under the table. Outcome above the table. So those were the combinations and those are the things that we brought it up, because these are the kind of contentious thing. This is why people sometimes find the concept of karma difficult to grasp, because the theaters are not so visible. They are visible. If you know, it's a forget in a fight and I punch you, you punch me, as we said, and that's obvious, or you know, we're arguing on above the table mm-hmm on top of the table, and when the cause or the effect is not so obvious, we find it difficult to kind of be, able to trace that.
Speaker 3:And then I think it leaves people puzzled. It leaves people then questioning the world, their life philosophy, their concept of a God versus no God when it comes from the unknown and people are not capable of tracing things back to their roots. It's not so overt like I punched you and you punched me back right. That's right In your face. It's blatant and there's an immediate action, reaction. Then it leaves people with these kinds of questions like why do bad things happen to good people? Why did this person's life get cut short? Why did this disease manifest suddenly? And understanding, I think, the philosophy of upchang or karma and cause and effect will bring relief to your suffering. But we honed in last time. What I, or what we don't think is helpful or beneficial, is to apply this logical reasoning and try to trace back, step by step, by step by step, to the initial cause. It's a long way it's a long ways.
Speaker 3:It's convoluted. You don't have the wisdom to see past certain obstacles and barriers and limits of your knowledge, so it's convoluted. You don't have the wisdom to see past certain obstacles and barriers and limits of your knowledge, so it's you're going to get trapped and lost and oftentimes people then, in an unhealthy fashion, take things on as a personal thing, right? So there's this guilt-ridden response. Oftentimes that occurs. So yeah, it is.
Speaker 2:You know you mentioned the, the disease being brought on, and things. There is and we do have that also in the organization of karma the causes of ailments and diseases. Right, so too, karmically. You know, cause and affecting, and and and. Again, I do want to make a sort of disclaimer, if you will. It's we must be very cautious that to one then thinks, oh, I'm a bad person, that's why, you know, I have x, y, z, that's, that's not it. That is such a grotesque and and and really kind of vile oversimplification. A reductionist, yeah, reduce perspective to just, and then we? The danger then is not only for ourselves, but then also that could very easily be the fuel for judgment and prejudice and racism and sexism and ageism, and you name it it's, brick by brick, layering the walls of your hell.
Speaker 3:And so we, yeah, I'm just saying like, like, this concept of opchang gets superimposed on the nature of reality, and I might meander for a second, but it we're all here on this earth to learn and we have all taken on a body. So, aside from upchang and this is also partially upchang, but that framework sits within the idea that there's a body, that the body is impermanent. This goes almost to the formidable truth, and the body is conducive to decay, birth, old age, sickness and death. Right? So, regardless of the upchang, this comes to all because we have entered into a physical body made of jisu huapun, earth, wind, water and father fire, which is now, uh can, it has to undergo these conditions, right? So yeah, it is.
Speaker 2:And so, then, what we also have right in terms of the karmic causalities of sickness. We might as well go down that route, okay, so first of all, sickness caused karmically caused, sort of by action created in one's past life. Then we have the sickness karmically caused by action created in this life, and then we have sickness by the karma of ignorance, right? So, whether this life, past life, that's, you know just a sort of ignorance.
Speaker 2:And what we then end up with is, you know, a kind of understanding of these conditions as again having causality, anx, stress and anxiety, right on the physical, being so. So many diseases nowadays are manufactured in a sense, or the outcome of mental states of worries, anxieties, etc. Etc. The depressive, you know, patterns of thinking, all of that, and I am by no means kind of excusing or trying to suggest that mental illness is just something. Think yourself out of it, but the causality is there. We get ourselves into trouble, we cause our diseases.
Speaker 2:That's the ignorance element. By not knowing any better, we do a thing. So we could think, for example, with addiction, the initial, I mean mean unless you're born, you know, and your mother, the, the father, the whole thing, you know. But so the usual track for addiction is that it's a choice to use that then perpetuates into an addictive state, I mean if you have an addictive personality and predispositions and all of that. So maybe the first and I know from members of my family, in fact, the initial using is a choice, choice governed by ignorance. Right is a choice, choice governed by ignorance.
Speaker 3:You're right that then the initial use becomes now you have to, you're, now, you're trapped, you've completely entrapped and snared by the thralls of addiction and can come out and I would imagine and venture to say, whatever that person thought at the onset or the onboarding or the initial use of this drug, whatever they fantasize in their mind at that moment, this is going to make me feel better. This is going to make all my problems go away. This is going to make such and such thing better the view what?
Speaker 3:happened everything? Yeah, the viewing was a good idea, but what happened after some time? Where the person no longer is in control of their choices? It's now the drug that that has overridden their choices and, like I've mentioned earlier episodes, it can override a person's choices beyond even what the natural instincts of life, the natural driving forces of life, are, like having love and relationships, having your basic needs, like food, man, it will override even those things. Right, you'll steal from someone that you care about and you'll neglect your nutritional needs just to get your fix. Uh, that's what I'm saying. There's this huge discrepancy between that initial moment where it was a choice driven by fantasies, that, driven by fantasies, that kind of validated that choice. This is a good idea, you know, this is gonna make you your pain go away, this is gonna make your relationship better. This is gonna make all your problems go away, right, and then whoosh, magically, like I said yeah none of that was true, because now it was true, for for a time
Speaker 2:whatever one-time, one time use. This person used one time. They shut up one time and you fast forward later and eventually it becomes where they don't want to be, where they are. But now the addictive element and that cyclical, hellish, reincarnating karmic thing becomes yeah, it ended their life eventually.
Speaker 3:And I was thinking about that, the specific person who you're referring to. I don't think that they even conjured up any idea that their life would have ended with death in the initial stage. Oh yeah, Right.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So we have that kind of, you know, there's a causality by ignorance, and then we have the causality by karmically kind of driven, and then we have the one that's karmically from past lives you know, and that's sort of we could say it's a little bit of a longer term.
Speaker 2:Having said that, I mean is this is going to be a lot collectively, but I really do hope that it's going to dispel some of the oversimplifications and and, in fact, if you really put this together and don't catch feelings, as the kids nowadays say- if you don't catch feelings about it, then it really can inform our lives in a way that we can unbind from so much unnecessary suffering in our lives.
Speaker 2:So what we haven't yet mentioned, I don't think were the karma that we call Seungmyung, which is the karma that we have, karma that you can change and karma that you cannot change. And again, here karma means I'm using it, as we've discussed in the first part of this, using it sort of in that loosely defined term, that is to say, I am born to the parents I was born to. That's unchangeable Parents. Could you know whatever? I could disown parents. Parents could disown you whatever.
Speaker 2:Legally you know all those things, but the reality of the fact is that is unchangeable. And then we have other kind of reorganizations and we could do many things. So we have also other karmas of our lives that we cannot change, cannot change. We work towards amelioration of that suffering and understanding and getting wiser and tipping the scales. And then we have karma that is changeable, this sort of more lighter type of thing.
Speaker 2:And so there are things inside of control and outside of our control, depending on on the heaviness of the karma. We have the causality of visible and invisible, invisible cause and visible and and that whole combination of those things which is, you know, we see this with corruption and we see this with with public figure being, one way, you know, sort of the typical political theater, right, what you see isn't what you get, it's not. And then we have the things where you get something, what you get is not what you get, it's not, yeah. And then we have the things where you get something, what you get is not what you see. And then we have when you get what you see, and then what you don't you get, you don't see, get what you don't.
Speaker 3:So it really answers everything. We're done, that's done A lot of seeing and not seeing. Everything's been answered Over the table, under the table.
Speaker 2:It's really which would then, you know, if we use it properly to inform our lives, what we end up doing is simply understanding, not groaning and moaning, not bemoaning our conditions, not. We simply know, ah, there's a cause and effect, and then what we could do is respond. We could take time. We simply know, ah, there's a cause and effect, and then what we could do is respond. We could take time and energy. There's a sort of economy in that, because then we could spend energy addressing the issue as opposed to spend energy bemoaning the issue, as opposed to spend energy bemoaning the issue and worrying about the issue and complaining about the issue. Those are energy saps. They, they drain, you know, life out of people so frequently metaphorically and literally.
Speaker 3:Metaphorically and literally yes.
Speaker 2:And so if we could now have this understanding of ah, there are visible causes and invisible outcomes, and invisible outcomes and invisible causes and all of that, there are causes within this single lifetime that are obviously kind of more traceable, frequently, right, and then there are causes over multiple lifetimes. We get the combination of all those things. So what we need to have in the face of our life experience is an aha moment and kind of state of wakefulness to say, okay, that's what it is what it is. It's sort of dharmic in that sense. Dharma means you know, that's how it is what it is. It's sort of dharmic in that sense.
Speaker 2:Dharma means that's how it is at least one definition, and so this is how this is. What am I going to do about it? Is the question that we have to ask ourselves what am I going to do about it, ask ourselves, what am I going to do about it? And and then we, we are faced with a freedom of choice. Frequently, and if we are then in a place where I have no freedom of choice but I have freedom of perception, a freedom of perspective. Right, there was a gentleman in a Chinese prison and he was given a document to sign to kind kind of recant his you know position, and he refused, and so they've thrown him into prison. Not only was he in prison, but he was sentenced to from something to the effect from 6 am to from something to the effect from 6 am until 6 pm, with breaks for bathrooms and whatever things. But he was said to have to sit on like a six-inch stool, so nearly squatting.
Speaker 2:So I'm comfortable position to begin with and eventually, by whatever means, he was released or however that unfolded. He was asked then how he was able to manage. And this is where this idea of people who have gone through living hell, who come out on the other end, who come out on the other side of this kind of living hell, frequently come out with a perspective that they've utilized as they were walking through the hellfire, and it's a sort of what I call sacred gullibility, right, because otherwise your entire kind of soul is consumed and if you do make it out, you hate. It's a really kind of there's a number that's done. And then there are people who go through this hellfire and come out and in a sense survived, a kind of phoenix thing rising from the ashes type of thing.
Speaker 2:And you know this gentleman sitting on the stool, he thought of all the meals, and this is years, right, so years worth of you know. He thought of all the meals and this is years, right, so years worth of you know. So things of trying to remember things from the past, from the childhood, uh, you know, thinking of all the favorite meals that he would like to eat, and and went all the way into sort of astronomy and astrology, and and metaphysics and, and, and you, and quantum theories and what else he was thinking about. Essentially, what he did is he took a trip every day in his mind to travel someplace, and this is kind of what got him through.
Speaker 2:So the condition in which he was in, namely that of prison and that further than torture, is having to remain sort of seated on this tiny stool, that was the condition, but he used his mind in a creative way where the conditions were sort of transcended and it's that transcendence. And so when we are faced with conditions in our lives, and even when it seems that we have absolute no choice to do anything about it, there is a doing, there's a realm of doing that exists in in the mind, in the psyche, in the perception and and the it's. It's a challenging thing to grasp and and frankly, really via spiritual, it's called enlightenment, is the real realization as, as as one here this ahead, yeah with the skull and and all of that.
Speaker 3:And you know we'll relay that story at some point in time about this idea of mind creating the world around us I think that's a very good point and we were talking about disease earlier and for those people who have suffered with chronic illness, this gives them a sense of hope, where the body is undergoing decay of illness and will eventually meet its mortality, like all of us. But for some, sooner than later, this part is immovable. This part is a karmic consequence that they can't do anything about. Maybe they've reached the limits of modern medicine.
Speaker 3:And so then the area in which they do find relief is in their mind, in their hearts and in their souls. Coming to terms with and accepting that reality, then people get a glimpse of peace, eternal peace, amidst this great tragedy that we all feel for those people. But there may be no return back to a state of health for the body. This is a reality for many people, yes, and if you just hone in on that one piece and we don't have this deeper layer like you're referring to now, just like the man that was in prison, that was immovable, for for him he couldn't get out of that, but there was a part that was not exposed to, let's say, suffering, and that was the inner part of the mind. This was the realm in which there was some empowerment, there, where he could direct his mind.
Speaker 3:And in the same manner, a person who is working and struggling through a chronic illness and has faced their mortality, struggling through a chronic illness and has faced their mortality, well, the body may be dying, but the mind certainly does not have to. You can still work with a professional work, with your faith, and find a sense of acceptance which ultimately leads to this eternal peace, and I think this almost jives with to bring another things with part of what you were talking about at sunday service in the moment of aligning yourself with pop, aligning yourself with the dharma and versus going against it and just grinding up against this thing that you will never be able to get rid of or get out of your life, right. So these are?
Speaker 2:these are hard these are hard topics, pain in particular. It's, it's a, it's a big deal, yeah, um. And then we have where the body is healthy in the sense, but then the mind becomes to go that happens that kind of? Thing. So when you said mind, you meant something more transcendent than just the electrical storm in a brain that we consider as from certain perspective, as the mind. Not the chip, Not the chip right.
Speaker 2:So, there is a causality and there's a perspective that we could have, and this is what we're hoping that with this particular two episode thing, to shed some light on these elements of life that have a freeing ability, elements of life that have a freeing ability. So we have, and last time, in the last episode, I was saying how neatly put together the episode has been, because it is a systematic kind of approach to life. In a sense it's very kind of we delineate cause and effect as we've gone back and forth with these. Now, what we haven't talked about is Jungi in terms of karma. So Jungi, buljungi, mujungi are the time, is in terms of karma. So are the time element We've mentioned it briefly but also what we need to consider, right, we've presented as seasons at some point in time, right?
Speaker 2:So not only is the visibility of cause and its outcome, the cause and effect being visible, sort of above the table, a element and cause above the table, result under the table, cause under the table, result above the table, cause under the table, result under the table. So that's one kind of element, one combination. But then we also have to consider the time element. So according to the fruition of karma, according to the time. So jongi means an immediate cause and effect, and this is the easiest one.
Speaker 2:And when we talked about, you know us sitting, you know across one another from a table and and you know we have this above the visible to every participant of the dinner party. You know you, I do a thing, you do a thing, everybody sees it, everybody knows it, and it's taking place in real time. It's taking place here and now. So the cause and effect are almost immediate. The fun example of this is if you're nailing a nail into the wall, that you're trying to hang something, let's say, and you hit your finger. You see the nail, you see the finger, you see the hammer, you see all of those elements. You see the hammer land on the finger and you see the finger. Everything is known.
Speaker 3:You feel it. Yeah, it's right there. Everything's registered. Every step was registered in your consciousness.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's very obvious, it's very visible. It's very obvious, it's very visible, it's very clear. There's the cause, there's the effect. The timeliness of the cause and effect are immediately, right now, visible, we don't really even have to think about it. Now we do have to be cautious, and this is what frequently happens when we cast judgment upon others, or when we cast judgment upon others or when we cast judgment upon ourselves, Because just because the visible cause and effect and the time, etc. Etc. We have to also consider the sort of conditions.
Speaker 2:And so what we frequently, like we've mentioned, I believe in the last episode, if you've fallen face first into a puddle of mud and you have a kind of moment of oh, I remember I shoved my best friend when I was a child into it, and so we create this correlation that is frankly just speculation really, because we pair and match the expression of it so shoved into mud and now shoved into mud.
Speaker 2:That means they must be connected and it's much more complex than that. So many other elements are at play, so many interweavings of cause and effect are at play, that to reduce it like this, what we end up, and the danger there is, the danger of judgment, of prejudice, right, there's a danger of all the isms, racisms, this because, oh, that person, that color person, that race person, that you know nationality person did a thing to me. And then we draw this conclusion well, you know, they're all like it. You know, and, and, and it makes sense, and so we could draw these dots, we make connections and we don't allow each moment, each new moment, A prior experience can inform the new moment.
Speaker 3:but for heaven's sake, give the courtesy and respect to the idea of newness.
Speaker 3:Right and the idea of limitation of one's knowledge, right, but in a new moment, there's always the infinite potential for things to go in different directions. And if it had to do with another person prior to this moment doing something from a human rights, humanistic perspective, this is a different person, right? And we're not. We're blinded by the past and you're not giving this person their true uh right to to freely be who they are and to express themselves in the manner in which they want. You're now tainting who they are with your judgments, with your biases, with your limited perceptions.
Speaker 2:It's worth remembering these things, because tools, tools, tools are tools. How do you use the tools? Knife isn't bad. No, a knife is a knife is a knife is a knife as a rose is a rose is a rose, so what do you do with? Do you use it properly?
Speaker 2:you could make a fantastic sandwich with your knife absolutely or your sergeant can save your life sergeant could serve your life, or somebody else could end somebody's life, or he could end somebody's life. And, maim, it's what you do with the tools. So we have to be careful. Now, given this perspective on karma, we have to always remember to guard our mind and the proclivities of our ego thinking. The proclivities of our ego thinking and the tendencies that we have to want to molt and alter reality to satisfy our own imagined way that things work. And we could very easily then use and justify behaviors on account of our quote-unquote enlightenment.
Speaker 2:It's obviously not enlightenment, but we see this because otherwise, how is it that religious people I mean across the board, right why? How is it that religious people do some of the things that they do? It's in such disalignment and misalignment of their fates or the teachings of their fates, etc. How is it that they do the things that they do, even though and then what we get? The famous one, even though they know better what they know let's say we have this information they mangle and mutilate the information to match their own agenda.
Speaker 2:Really dangerous, really dark, dark alley to go down. And you end up in a different kind of hell when you use your spirituality or your religious perspectives and points of views mangled to satisfy your own agendas and what it? It's a special, special place in the hell realms for that, the religious loophole right and, and this is the, the, that's the thing, it's the idea, oh, you know it's, it's uh lofty, thinks one to oneself. Oh, this is justified by Scripture or by this or by that. It's a mangling, twisting and turning and, like I said, it's a different kind of hell.
Speaker 3:So much pain and suffering has been at the tip. Of this is what Scripture calls me to do.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we really have to be cautious.
Speaker 3:That's across the board. For any yes, and I've said this so many times, my karma ran over your dogma type of thing. Anyone who's engaged in strict dogmatic.
Speaker 2:Fixated.
Speaker 3:Fixated. But that's religion Rigorous.
Speaker 2:And I've said it time and time again and I say it again there's no more, bigger and worse type of ego than that religious one. The spiritual ego, the religious ego, is one of the most dangerous that I can imagine.
Speaker 3:That's why the buildings of many religious institutions are so damn tall To fit the egos of all those people there.
Speaker 2:Big door. Yeah, so we have the cause and effect and the time being sort of immediate, if you will, right Then. So that's, then we have meaning that there is no, the, the causality, the cause and effect, the fruition of the seed has a delay, delay, however delay that exists within a single lifetime. Delay, delay, however delay that exists within a single lifetime. You know so, and as we bring this up and as we kind of working this out, one must also remember that one action, let's say that the cause and effect, as an example, the cause and effect is visible to everybody, the time is visible to everybody, and then that the one cause in that expression, so the one cause in that expression, so the known cause and the visible and known outcome, the time of it being immediately, so what do we get, is not an end of a chain reaction.
Speaker 2:We also have to remember that when we're thinking of karma. So what we have is one cause creating an outcome and the circumstances. The outcome is immediate, but then the resulting thing is the seed or the beginning of potentially another revolution of this. So something done visibly or publicly, the outcome, seen visibly and publicly, it's immediate. Out of that is born a seed. That seed then, depending on how handled, can then become a seed that now grows into the next life. So it's not always like visible invisible. Visible invisible it's not always, it's not a repetition of the thing. They, they, they really are fantastic.
Speaker 3:I mean, it's kind of fascinating and it does not allow a person to create this one algorithm that will answer or explain every person's life. Every person is a world. Every person is a unique universe Onto themselves, right? Because maybe one person and this is where you can really get trapped up and if you're strictly applying logical reasoning in these situations where it's like, oh, you punch someone, they punch you back you know, I learned that is immediate karma and then you, and then maybe you go and look at another situation, or you go and do it yourself and you punch someone and they don't punch you back and you're like, aha, they lied to me, right, right, this is this. Is you just narrowing the whole world to one little grain of sand of the vast oceans filled with sands that exists out there?
Speaker 3:You could really get trapped up and then lose belief or understanding and no longer further your studies or your contemplation of these principles.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it is a…. Yeah, it is a. Please, those of you who are listening, consider these talks of ours, these conversations of ours, these points that we're trying to make, if there are any, as you know. Tend to them cautiously, and this is where the pursuit of wisdom is always paired with, whatever it is, other element. Always we talk about compassion and when lacking in wisdom it turns into something. Compassion could become problematic if it hasn't the wisdom. I know we've mentioned that compassion is kind of love with wisdom in a sense.
Speaker 3:But you know Right, because we have those sense stories, and it almost reminds me of the original Karate Kid story too, where you have the master-student relationship and the master says simply just follow, you know, go and chop wood. And then the student does that for a certain amount of time and then he confronts the master at a later time. Master, you have told me, you know, by doing such and such it would bring this kind of effect I thought I was coming here for a karate lesson.
Speaker 3:You know the same thing with with boshi right? You tell someone you know, do water donation, you need more water donation so that this such and such thing can come into your life. And someone does it for a certain amount of time and they don't get the outcome they wish. And then again there's that confrontation, either internally challenging you know, your beliefs, or challenging the person who told you and saying you have lied to me, this isn't the case. And I just want to go back, before I pass the baton to you, to the karate kid moment from the original Karate Kid with Rough Macho, where Mr Miyagi is telling him to send the floor, send the floor, send the floor. And paint the fence, wax on, wax off. And then there's that famous moment in the movie. He's like you haven't taught me anything. And he's like, oh yeah. And then that's where he says show me, send the floor. And he strikes him and then he's able to block every single punch with that technique.
Speaker 2:That is punking. We use that in Zen all the time. I had a gentleman. I saw another episode, but go ahead.
Speaker 2:I had a gentleman, years ago, came to meditation class and happened to be the only one there and I started doing deep bowing you know 180 bows, and he's following along and I bowing, you know 180 bows, and he's following along and I hear him, you know, challenged by it and you know, behind me. So we finished the thing, finished class. He stops by the front desk at the time I didn't even have a splendor of an office like I do now, my little nook and he says, you know, kind of upset in this voice, I came for meditation class. There you go. I said you don't think that was meditation class, do you? He said no, yeah, he came to sit down. That's why he didn't come for a class. Here in class, you learn something he came to. You know I am here dance monkey, monk, monk E.
Speaker 3:Whatever story I created or picture I made in my mind, right so.
Speaker 2:so are you here for a lesson? Are you here to learn? Are you here for a class or are you here just you know, for me to do what you, and then, and there's same time and place, and, and, and you know each individual person at each individual step in their journey, et cetera, et cetera. He became a member of the Zen Center A few years later, took precepts, so it became my. One could speculate that perhaps if he came for sit-down meditation and I gave him exactly what he thought he needed, he would have walked out and never come back.
Speaker 3:Very much, very likely.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's not as simplistic as we frequently imagine it to be. So we have now time fruition right, immediate delayed, that is to say delayed from within once, one single lifetime. We know that the cause and effect, that the effect, the fruition of that will be in within single lifetime. And then we have, which is unknown, the unknown season of fruition of the seeds of our karma. And this is interesting because now it throws the thing in, it throws a sort of bit of a wrench. Perhaps we can see the seed, so we could. Now we have the above the table confrontation. Let's say, I've thrown water in your face and you didn't respond in kind, and then everybody thinks all right, that's, you know, he was assaulted, he didn't retaliate, end of story. And then maybe next lifetime I drown. You know it's a drastic it's a drastic kind of thing you know.
Speaker 2:But that is to say, you know, we don't know. Sometimes we don't know when the fruition happens, and so this makes for a very complex universe of going uns, for a very complex universe of going-ons. The causes are visible or the causes are invisible. The outcomes are invisible or visible. The cause and outcomes happen in a single lifetime, they happen over multiple lifetimes, they happen immediately, et cetera, et cetera. Now here's one that sometimes takes people by surprise, because even if one's cause and effect aren't seen within that person's lifetime, it can be seen within three to four generations of their offsprings, which is a sometimes people are kind of knocked by that.
Speaker 3:Well, we have some dna evidence right, that's the thing that is kind of alluding and pointing to those things.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. You know we've talked about that study that was done that suggested something to the fact that if your grandfather starved not starved to death, but had a hard winter, let's say at an age of whatever 8 to 14, some teenage years, if you had a rough winter and there was insufficient food and things of that nature, that your likelihood of developing cardiovascular disease is significantly less. And so it's kind of a gift from grandpa, you know, on account of his suffering, Right. So we have to also consider that it's also not just you do the kind of suffering we could say, because then we have that good and bad linear thinking also. So grandpa suffered, but, and probably it's not even a matter of perspective, I'm sure At that time he was like man, this sucks, you know, I'm starving, I'm hungry, I'm cold, I'm whatever you know rough time. Absolutely, we're not even talking about that. Grandpa had sort of a shift of perspective and said, oh, you know what I'm gonna, I'm gonna think of my grandson and and I'm gonna suffer this with grace and and you know I will bestow upon him a less likely you know likeliness of of having a a um, cardiovascular cardiovascular disease, right, you. So grandpa suffered and suffered the suffering, potentially, but yet as an outcome of said suffering, is something that is positive.
Speaker 2:So now I think there's only one element cherry on top of this all Saup and Kongop Individual karma, individual person's karma and the collective karma. Ladies and gentlemen, folks, I think we have come to the end of explanations of all things in the vast universe. We are so interconnected with one another At times this really is a tapestry of existence, Because we have and this isn't necessarily so how to clarify the collective karma. I mean individual karma is sort of obvious. Right, You're walking through a desert and a cow falls on your head and kills you dead.
Speaker 2:In a sense, we could say that's an individual karma. You were just out there in a desert and it was karmically yours to be splatted by a cow. We have that story of the fortune teller, if you recall it call it was told you know, ah, you're going to die in three years and stayed home, had his you know, essentially food and and provisions ubered, or you know to him and and medieval over medieval right you know, delivered and walks out of his door three days and, uh, three years later and the dad and a cow falls and kills him, right.
Speaker 2:And when I tell that story people's like, oh, that's children's story. And I say to that you haven't seen a tornado, have you?
Speaker 3:yeah, you're telling me there's no flying cows?
Speaker 2:yeah, you know, there's no when, when fishes rain right in the united states there's so many, so many, a lot of stories, episodes, right when the fish rain falling from the sky because of a volcano I mean a tornado slurped up a lake and fish and frog are falling. You know the end of times. If you're biblically inclined, you know that's it. You go and you know prepare for rapture because you got the rain of salmon going on. You know prepare for rapture because you got the rain of salmon going on. You know, and so that's the kind of, we could say, individual.
Speaker 3:You're walking through this and a splat goes the cow and your pancake. Well, I think for a corn up. There are many examples People that were in the Twin Towers for 9-11. People that have been in wars together, People who have been in the same car and there's an accident of some sort, or just simply the term that we always say you're on the same boat, right If you're on the same cruise ship and a giant wave comes.
Speaker 3:Does the person in the smallest room feel it and the person who's in the biggest suite not feel that wave? Right they all equally feel the impact of that wave because they're all literally on the same boat, that's that's a fantastic way of putting it, because your your individual karma, that the element of the individual karma is the size of europe.
Speaker 2:You got the third class shabby accommodations, and then there's a somebody else in a penthouse with you know fancy champagne bottles, and so that there's the individual karma element and there's the collective karma that it's one boat, yeah, and titanic down it goes there it is.
Speaker 3:I mean, one can be drinking their wine in a wooden cup and the other one in a gold cup, but when the wave comes, they both spill that's right, and again.
Speaker 2:And so then the other way, right, you could have your collective karma. Is the wine, right? They're both drinking the same wine. You're drinking from a wooden cup, they're drinking it from from a golden chalice, right? So this could go up always. And also people who have survived by the sort of skin of their teeth, as they say, in situations where they are too in a collective sort of the kungo, the collective karma.
Speaker 2:So right, if you take all of these elements into account the collective karma and the individual karma. The collective karma and the individual karma. The time of immediate, delayed to a single lifetime, delayed to multiple lifetimes, with the chance of spillover to the offspring. The above-the-table action, above-the-table reaction, above-the-table action, under above the table reaction, above the table action, under the table reaction, under the table action, under the table reaction, under the table action, above the table reaction. I think I got them all. And if you take all of these things, you know, write them on a little note card, each one of those, and then you put them in a container and you shake that container or you just toss the elements and see them as they fall, for every time you toss them, right, the combination is going to be altered and different and reorganized in so many possible combinations. Right, this is the karmic complexity of life and we've already said it's not a good thing to oversimplify it.
Speaker 2:Having said all of this, what are we to do? Wake up, wake up. Wake up as much as possible, as frequently as possible. Wake up to the current here and now. Wake up to the present moment. Wake up to where I am. Only and only in that state of wakefulness are we in a position of altering the thing. Don't go thinking, oh, this particular thing is woeful in my life. What should I do? It's, it's a lot. Now, having said that, we do have to offer the fact that masters know, masters know the path. So, like a dosa means the one who knows, do means the way right.
Speaker 2:So, the one who knows the way. So Zen masters and you know they can offer a pathway, because there is a vision, there is a knowing that is available. And this is not only available to Zen masters and monks. We all have it. We just have to train it, we have to tend to it, we have to polish it. Just have to train it. We have to tend to it, we have to polish it, we have to work at it and we can. We can see the path.
Speaker 2:I mean, when you go through a forest and an untrained eye, you know you sort of scan, you scan the, the forest area, you just see trees and plants and grasses and rocks and you hear a chipmunk and a this and a that, but for a trained tracker who sees the broken branch and then who sees the footprint or sees the kind of bent stalk of grass, they could see the way they know who's been through there.
Speaker 3:The way, they know who's been through there, they know who's been through there.
Speaker 2:They know, though, there's an animal highway right there. You know that's. That's carved out by the animal. But we, we are preoccupied with other things, because for a normal person quote unquote who goes into a forest, they're not a forest creature, so they don't have the perception we, we know and we could reverse that. Right, because then you get a forest dwelling creature, you put them in a city and they'll get hit by a car. Right, because they don't know road is a road, and so this is true with fish and currents and lakes and waters, et cetera.
Speaker 2:You know, fishermen and those with trained eye can see the current by the waves. They could see where the dangerous undercurrent is. They could see, oh, it's going to go, it's going gonna blow. This is what we mentioned when. How do you stop it? Okay, I did it in a timely fashion. Stop as you, so we can see the path, if we have the eye to see the path. For the most part, living a regular life concerned with with the usual concerns of day-to-day living, we haven't the chance to train the sight, but that is a possibility, and this is on account of that advice frequently that we receive from our teachers and our masters and our monks and, if they happen to have sufficient enough as what is one of your favorite expressions, the ones with a little dust in their eye. So, if they have a little dust in their eye, they could advise you how to go through the dark times of life, how to navigate the current conditions, because there is a site that is available.
Speaker 3:I can't speak enough to that point that you're making, because I want to also piggyback off what you're saying and tell our audience to study and learn and if you have the let me say the good karmic roots, to have encountered a dosa, an architect of the way, one who knows the path, every moment with them is a living, breathing opportunity to learn the dharma, to learn the natural law.
Speaker 3:And it's in these moments where there are these nuggets that are just so nutritious for your life that it will literally transform and alter your life and change the trajectory of your karma that you might not even be self-aware of, but they are and it makes me think.
Speaker 3:I mean, we have countless stories with our dosanim, our unsanim, but in particular, this one story comes to mind about a Zen master who had his who, his students I forget if it was they want to do a prank, or they want to measure or test the Zen master's patience, but either way it couldn't have been a good karmic cause to take, let's say, a bucket of salt and put it into a soup and then offer it to your Zen master, and then the students hid because they wanted to see the torture and pain that that Zen master would go through, or to see if they can trigger some anger and have him throw the bowl and dump the soup. And this is this transformative moment that these students were not. They didn't even conjure the thought in their mind what this person was gonna do, but the impact was so deep and so profound. I guarantee you they never forgot that lesson, and it was that the zen master sat through the whole bowl and ate it to the very last drop right.
Speaker 2:So there's a the. The back story of that is that, you know, said zen master always talked about respect food, respect food, don't judge, don't judge food, food is food, etc. Food, et cetera, et cetera. They're like oh yeah, yeah, we'll show you which. You know, I think, as stories go it's, you know, I would like to think that it wasn't so much as a sort of oh yeah, but a genuine kind of really. You know, I could only hope so, as a disciple myself, you know, I could only hope so as a, as a, as a disciple myself, you know, I can only hope so. And and, yeah, he ate it. And and they asked oh, concern him, wasn't the soup salty? Mmm, I'd say, yeah, it was salty mm-hmm then you know they were perplexed by.
Speaker 2:It was a little. Then why did you eat it? Wasn't it very salty? It was very salty, say. Why did you eat it?
Speaker 2:he said I wasn't thinking so much about the soup, but your hearts and that you have offered me this thing and I love you. That's why I've eaten it, out of respect for you. Of course, they wept with broken to shattered, you know. Whatever it was, whatever the motivation was yeah, it was really. He drove that point home and they, like you said, they certainly have never forgotten it. Yeah, I bet it is.
Speaker 3:You carry that with you now into the future.
Speaker 2:It is challenging to and it is not a dismissal of an individual person's ability to understand something We've had so many times I had asked in the past the thing of insanium and he would say you'll understand later. And I hated that. I've always hated that because you know, I want to understand my ego now, you know, I'm not an imbecile.
Speaker 2:I mean, I'm not. Maybe you know the bright, the brightest tool in the shed, but you know, but I am not a buffoon. I thought to myself. My ego said that, right, I'm not stupid, give it to me, I could handle it. And time and time again these sort of things happened. I could say now that he was absolutely correct. The thought that we could grasp the thing that we are yet unable to grasp is ludicrous. It really is, and so sometimes we need that faith, to have the faith in the words of the teacher, to say okay, and when this is done well, when the student and the teacher do their respective jobs, realization comes. Understanding comes, realization comes, understanding comes, and the things that were said that made no sense.
Speaker 2:You know, I had asked, sometimes unsung. In one time I was working with a specific meditation technique and I said he said I won't give you a different thing as I wait a minute, but I like what I had. He said you like it. I said wait a minute, but I like what I have. He said you like it. I said yes, I feel like I'm making progress, I like the method, I'm enjoying it, et cetera, et cetera. I made a whole list of things. He said yes, you want to go from here to, let's say, Elizabeth and you have a bicycle. You've had that bicycle, you like it. Would you rather put you know, like bedazzle your bicycle. Or I wanna give you a car. You don't wanna take it?
Speaker 2:That was his kind of way of of course right, it's, it's much more luxurious and gets you there faster. So sometimes our egos hold on for dear life to a thing because of familiarity, to a thing because we've decided all by ourselves, all all on our own, to you know, I'm going to do this and we don't know. What we don't know is the point and we haven't yet. So sometimes it is absolutely true, you will understand later. You will understand later and I believe those who have lived sufficient amount of life this realization comes whether you are pursuing some spiritual paths or whatever, or not. You just realize, ah now, I know.
Speaker 2:And we have this, you know, when you turn 40.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I've had a bunch of those. When I was in high school, my dad was like, don't hang out with that guy. I'm like, oh dad, you have no freaking clue what you're talking about. That's right. And as you get older you're like, ah, he was 100% right, that's right Experience.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, I think that'll do. Yeah, thank you those of you who are listening, thank you those of you who have chosen to support the podcast financially. Until next time. We're waiting for topics, I think. Anyway, until next time, take care of yourselves and each other.
Speaker 3:I'm Milgan Sinim from my heart to yours. I'm Dr Ruben Lambert. If you like what you heard, please share it. Pass it on to others. Have a great day. If you didn't understand some of the things that we talked about here today, don't worry, you'll understand in due time.
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