Good morning. Last week, during my talk last Saturday, Sonia, who is Iranian, asked me a question about how she could encourage people in Iran who are, you know, out in the streets. And she has a, participates in a program on Iranian television. And she sometimes asks me, you know, Zen responses, which she gives to people in that program.

[01:05]

And so she asked me this question about how, you know, what did I have, could I say about encouraging people? And she says, I tell them to sit a little Zazen. And So she was expecting a very encouraging response from me because I'm the kind of person who always gives encouraging responses. And I said something like, in this case, Zazen, I kind of put Zazen over to the side. And I said, it's a matter of karma. And people thought, that's not very encouraging.

[02:07]

It doesn't sound very compassionate. And she was a little discouraged by that. So I think I owe an explanation to a lot of people who felt the same way. about what I meant by karma. What I was thinking at the time was we have to look at the causes that have put us in the position that we're in. there are two ways to deal with a situation. There are more than two, but two main ways to deal with a situation. One is expediently, and the other is transformationally. So if we want an expedient response, we can say something like, calm yourself, or sit Zazen, or don't get angry, or whatever.

[03:17]

But in the long run, what we need is a transformational response. How we actually practice in a way that transforms our way of responding to the world. So I just want to express or say something about the meaning of karma. I explained this many times, so I'll do it again. Karma simply means a volitional action. Period. It's what you do. It's the act that you do volitionally. And for any action to bear fruit, there needs to be a cause, a main cause, a seed cause, and contributing causes.

[04:23]

So when we talk about karma, we're usually talking about the result of karma. We say, my karma is da-di-da, but we're talking about the result of my actions has led to this. Karma, you know, the term karma kind of covers the result, but strictly speaking, it simply means the act. The result is called phala, B-H-A-L-A, which means fruit, the fruits of our actions. So our actions bear fruit. If you have a bean, That's the seed. But the bean will not sprout unless you put it in the ground, which is a contributing cause for something to happen. But then, even though it's in the ground, it still needs water.

[05:29]

And even though it has water, it still needs sunshine. So, all these conditions together create the result. But the seed cause is your karmic act. So the cause and result sometimes come right away. There's always a result, but when karma is put into action, But sometimes the result is down the line. And sometimes the result is way down the line. So then we say, when it's way down the line, we say, geez, I don't know how this happened to me. You know, I didn't do anything wrong. But because we did something 10 years ago, it doesn't mature, the fruit doesn't mature until today.

[06:35]

Or as they say sometimes, next lifetime. So that's more theoretical. But you can see how it works. The law of karma is incontrovertible. In other words, it's a fact. And the way it works is due to various laws which are hard to understand. Buddha says, is reported to have said, I don't know what Buddha said. Buddha is reported to have said that the law of karma is the most difficult to understand how it works. So what's important to understand is that human beings are self-creating. Everything is self-creating, self-perpetuating.

[07:42]

So in Buddhism, there's no first cause. There's no deity who said, you know, Shazam, and everything sprang up. Life continues due to beginningless causes and results. beginningless, endless causes and effects. So, when I say we have to pay attention to the karma, it means that we have to see how we create what happens to us. And since karma is not something fixed, there's always an opportunity to change. People sometimes think karma means fate. But fate means something that's fixed, something that you can't do anything about.

[08:44]

People say, well, this is my fate, you know. Well, what they really mean is this is my destiny. Destiny and fate are not the same. Fate is something that is unchangeable, something predestined. Destiny is destination, someplace that your karma is leading you. We all have a destiny. Even though we're wandering around confused, it's still a kind of destiny because we may not have it together, we may not know where we're going, but there's a path. So sometimes I like to think of chaos as just another kind of order. that we don't understand. But nothing arises, according to Buddhism, nothing arises without a cause, or without actually more than one cause.

[09:48]

Everything arises through a combination of causes. So that's why we have to be very careful about what we do. the more we understand how the law of cause and effect, the more careful we become about how we behave ourselves. So a Buddhist is reported to have said, human beings are the perpetrators of their destiny. So we have the ability, because nothing is fixed, to change anything. Nothing is fixed. And the formula, not formula, but the stereotype of what Buddha's

[10:56]

message is, this is because that is. This exists because that exists. This exists this way because that exists that way. That's the whole of Buddhism. Everything else, all the, I don't know how many thousands of treatises on Buddhism, all your Buddhist libraries all come down to this. This exists this way because that exists that way. Nothing exists by itself or in a vacuum or due to a single cause. So we're continually creating our destiny. So how do we do that? What do we want?

[12:01]

That's a big question. You know, in the Fox Koan, I don't want to go through the whole Koan, but the, The old man asks Hyakujo, he says, I was once the abbot on this mountain temple, but one time somebody asked me, is an enlightened person subject to the law of cause and effect? And I said, no. And I was destined to become a fox for 500 lives. So, is an enlightened person subject to the law of cause and effect? No and yes. Yes and no.

[13:04]

Since nothing is fixed, nothing is fixed and everything is continually changing, one is not subject to the law of cause and effect. One is not bound by the law of cause and effect because the underlying principle of everything is emptiness. But on the other hand, here we are in this form. Everything has a form. So everything that has a form is subject to the law of cause and effect. So both is right. We are subject to the law of cause and effect, and we're totally free from the law of cause and effect. And when you realize that you are totally free from the law of cause and effect, then you will understand how to live within the law of cause and effect. But if we're caught by the law of cause and effect, that's called suffering.

[14:14]

So, the people in Iran have their own problems that are peculiar to that civilization, that country. The people in America have their own problems, which comes from the way we respond to life. through our karma. Strictly speaking, karma belongs to a person because it's a volitional action and it's not transferable. You can't give somebody else your karma and you can't accept somebody else's karma. The results of our actions belong to us, but even so, The law of karma, the way it works out, is totally impersonal. It's not like there's some personality in the sky that's judging you.

[15:42]

It's simply your own actions working out according to the law of cause and effect. And it's totally impersonal. What makes it personal is the way we think about it. So sometimes people talk about personal karma and collective karma. Collective karma means like a body of people, the karma which is produced by a nation because the nation acts in a certain way over a period of time they receive the results of that karma, you know, and suffer because of it. I don't know, I don't want to use the term collective karma because it may not be the proper term, but I would call it collective activity of the way a culture

[17:00]

or the way people in a culture go along with that culture. But somebody is doing something. So karma, my karma, if I'm acting in a kind of mean and unhealthy way, it affects all the people around me. So in that sense, that's sometimes called collective karma, but it's really influential karma. It's the influence and the bouncing off of your actions which affects other people. So a whole nation can be affected and sickened and suffer because of the actions of a few people. or the actions of a group of people. And the results of that can come back and devastate the whole society.

[18:08]

So it's kind of like a virus or a sickness. And since the world is driven by six things, It's driven by more, but there are six things that drive the world. Greed, ill will, and delusion. And the other three are generosity, goodwill, and enlightenment. And those forces are always interacting and vying for supremacy, or balance. there'll always be a balance. So we call it the balance of power in some way, and the balance of power has different, different ways of working out, but there's the balance of power of nations, which is always changing, and whoever is in power

[19:26]

in a country is always protecting their power and will do anything to keep it. So this causes a lot of problems. So how would I now address Sonia's question? I've been talking about your question. You came in a little late. I think Zazen is great. I have a student, an Iranian student, who is now in Iran, and he was a Zen student for a long time, and was with me at Tassajara, and I've been maintaining contact with him, and he's been trying to organized some kind of Zazen sessions in Iran, in his town, but he can't do it, you know, because it's Buddhist.

[20:38]

They won't let him do it, it's very suspicious. He can do something, calling it yoga, because yoga is not a special religion. It's a kind of practice. So he has to kind of call Zazen yoga, practice of some kind. And he's beginning to get together a little group of people around him, but it's very hard to do anything like that. So he's creating some good karma. He wants to create some good karma, something that would benefit people. really want to encourage him to do that. But I think when people take to the streets, as they've been doing in Iran, it's a little different than the people taking to the streets here, but it's also pretty much the same, and all over the world.

[21:45]

So I think people have to do that. In America, we've been trained to be nonviolent. Over a long period of time, there's been a lot of conscious training in how to be non-violent in our protests and so forth. And I think the way we go about doing something, demonstrating and voicing our concerns and so forth, has to be done in a way that creates good karma and doesn't create harmful karma, something that comes back. to either harm ourselves or other people. And it's very hard to do because so much of our protesting is done because we're angry. So over a long period of time, we've been in America developing a transformative approach how to deal with anger.

[22:52]

these workshops how to not get off on anger and so forth when you're dealing with protesting and when you're dealing with political transformations. So I think that there's a process in America that can be copied by other countries. Because every action you know, has an opposite, equal reaction according to the laws of physics, which I know nothing about. So as much oppression as there is in the world, there's also that much hope or that much groundswell to meet it in a different way. So that's the fertile ground for transformation. So that transformation can happen, but it has to be done in a way that's creating beneficial karma that will come back and perpetuate itself.

[24:04]

So that's what I mean, that's what I meant when I said it's a matter of karma. Do you have any questions? Ann? The point about the karma of an initial revolution, it's something that Jonathan Schell talks about a lot in his book, The Unconquerable World, new book, and he talks about popular movements all around the world over the past 300 years, and he makes a similar point, that typically what happens in a revolution is that people, through non-violent means, withdraw their consent from the government, and the government essentially then becomes illegitimate. And that that is typically a peaceful, non-violent transformation, but then after that, if the group that comes to power in place of the government

[25:12]

bad karma, and you have another illegitimate government, and you have what we saw all over the place. And in fact, I think that's what happened in Iran, when Ayatollah Khomeini and the initial revolution threw out the Shah. And so what you say is absolutely correct, that the people who, I mean, it puts a real burden on people who are trying to achieve revolution, but if the foundation of the new government comes through violence, then the country is just in another cycle of violence and totalitarianism. Revolution means full circle. So the way it starts is the way it ends, like the Soviet Union, in a way. that as I get it is, in fact, the Soviet Union didn't begin in violence.

[26:28]

It began with very minimal violence. But violence was seen, and weapons were seen, as a legitimate form of expression. So they were there. And so if they're So, even though these revolutions were essentially non-violent or merely violent, the French Revolution as well, if they believe in the power of these weapons, they're going to get used. That's right. If you have a powerful, if you inherit something, gee, look, we inherited most of the munitions in the world.

[27:32]

What are we going to do with it? We inherited most of the money in the world. What are we going to do with it? So if you've got it, you use it. And if you have an army that trains day in and day out and is not used for 20 years, What are you going to do with it? If you're a general who's been training for 20 or 30 years to have a war, where's the culmination of that? I'd like to underscore something you mentioned, that nothing has a single cause. When I heard you say that last week about the karma of Iran, I think a lot of people I really instantly agree.

[28:33]

I think a lot of people thought you were referring to the Iranians having only a single cause for their own responsibility. My thought, and I think, you know, the United States does, has played a role in the Karma of Iran. The CIA overthrew the Mossadegh government in 1954, which was headed toward democracy. either to blame the United States. I think that these kind of streams of cause flow together, and so we need to have a balanced response. That's a good point, because I wanted to say that I was not assigning blame. Thank you for that one. And yes, everything is so interconnected. that it's almost, you can put your finger on things, but there's history and intrigue of all kinds involved.

[29:41]

In a war, if a soldier kills, the result of that action will have an impact on the soldier, on the army, or on the nation. I mean, that's a kind of collective And then the other part of my question is, what's the difference between good karma and no karma? There's no karma and neutral karma. There's good karma, bad karma and neutral karma. Neutral karma is a karma that doesn't have an effect which is either good or bad. But we tend to think of neutral karma as more on the good side because it's not bad. And when you say no karma, there is always something, but it's not necessarily, maybe no karma is more like neutral. But there's always some result. But karma in the Buddhist system of understanding is either good, bad, or neutral.

[30:49]

Because what we're concerned with is suffering. and how to not keep perpetuating it. What about the army question? The first part of the question, the soldier that kills. It's legitimate murder. It's so interesting that killing in a war by soldiers is justified. But if you go down the street and shoot somebody, it's not. So a person can kill thousands of people in a war and not have any societal consequences, although their karma, there's consequences for their karma, their individual karma, and also the havoc they wreak on everybody. A person who kills somebody in an altercation of some kind has all these consequences, societal consequences, as well as karmic consequences.

[32:08]

Sue? Thanks. I'm sorry I didn't hear your lecture last Saturday. Did you talk about transformational revolution and relate it to Martin Luther King and Gandhi? No, I didn't. Okay. Sonia? Okay. Sonia. I want to thank you for clarifying that question. I really appreciate that. One, you mentioned about the practice of Buddhism in Iran. Actually, I have to say that I had a very good, very good experience this summer, last summer I went to Iran. And then I tried, I went to the parks and started Qigong.

[33:11]

So the next day, It's okay if I'm gonna do and then They welcome me because I had that experience in a late price after September 11th And then the police came and they stopped us to do any action in the parks Whatsoever so I had that in my mind when I went to Iran I said you're not gonna let me do this country no way so I start reaching on and I start doing the zen meditation and So they came after me, the TV also, to video it. And I did not want to do it because I wanted to go back again to that country. I said, it's gonna start a lot of, I just, I didn't want, I wanted to keep. And then I came to United States and I'm doing right now from TV here to Iran, 24 hours TV program I'm doing. So it's doable. In Iran,

[34:13]

It's when you are talking about the karma I'm thinking if you didn't have that wealthy in this soil It's so wealthy soil has all type of the jewelry the best oil the type of the oil the quality of oil and Also, the uranium we are using is so It's so rich soil, so if it just helps Because if the CIA is going to point, it's going to point to their wealth, so is it our karma is going to that? It's just, I think if the Iranians, they pray, they wish we didn't have oil. Yeah, yeah. It's circumstances. It's the circumstance, it's like this is, if you have wealth, somebody wants it.

[35:20]

I don't know how to answer your question exactly, but if you have wealth, there's an old saying, a wealthy person should not flaunt their wealth you know, before greedy people. I think if you look deep, deep down, it's like, how do we share the wealth? Because when something is kept, then it, when something is kept to yourself, then it makes it easier for people to get it. But when it's distributed, it's harder to steal. That's about, to me, I know what that means, but I don't know what to do about it.

[36:26]

So I think the question for the world is that same question. How do you distribute the wealth? so that nobody needs to steal. People will do it anyway. But still, basically, how do you distribute the wealth so that people don't need to steal? So maybe think about that. Peter? I was thinking that one of the ways in which individual karma and collective karma meet comes up around, in essence, how we think about history, or our own identity as American, or Iranian, or some person, as a connection with other people in a particular country or setting.

[37:31]

And I think about how things that we find encouraging about our history to think of. The ideals. The ideals. And we don't want to embrace other parts of our history, to which there's a lot of suffering attached. But that strikes me as part of how individual karma starts to have results for everybody else. Yeah. Affects everybody else. That's right. Our individual karma really affects everybody else, the results of our actions. Linda? On karma still, if there's a child that gets blown up in a violent situation, would you be able to

[38:37]

explain that to the parents, or would it have anything to do with individual karma? Oh, you mean like the child's karma? Is that what you mean? Is the child responsible for it? Is that what you're saying? Well, I have my own... I don't even know. I'm not sure what... The thing that I originally reacted to last week, too, was to say too easily, oh, that's their karma. And I know people who say that, who say that somehow deep in their many lives it must be their karma if they were blown up. Right. There is that misconception. Yes. There's a lot of misconception around karma, a lot of misconception around rebirth, a lot of misconception around conditioned co-production. All of that. There's a lot of misconception. And even I may have some. Just a minute, Charlie.

[39:40]

But, you know, everything that happens to us is not our karma, not caused by our karma. Our karma is our volitional action. So the child who's blown up, that's not the child's karma. That's the result of someone else's activity. The child didn't place themselves there to do that. I'm a big fan of Susan Sontag and I'm reminded of her book, Illness as Metaphor, talking about cancer and she lays out a beautiful, really it's an essay about the illness By extension, it's easy to make the case that somebody who's randomly assassinated or whatever did not lead a life where it's dead hands.

[41:03]

Okay. Well, some cases, yes, and some cases, no. Melody, did you? I'm just really happy to hear this discussion and have Dr. Sunio here with us. My question is, what is our responsibility to the Iranian people? I think our responsibility to the Iranian people is to be totally open, without preconceptions, without hanging on to our ideas. even though they may be correct, and to try and bridge differences. The most important thing in the world is to realize that we're all one person and every person and every nation is totally different.

[42:12]

and to have this understanding of we're all, this is one world, and we're all, even though there are borders, there are no borders. And even though we belong to certain societies, there are no special societies. And at the same time, there are borders, there are special societies, everyone's different. And to enjoy the integration without trying to change everybody to be like us.

[42:57]

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