#2024MeditationPracticeofHeartSutra_Day4Excerpt
#CauseOfSamsara
#KarmicImprint
#How12NidanasExplainCycleOfLifeAndDeath
Question: “During the teaching on the 12 links of dependent origination, you mentioned that when triggered by imprints, karma is created as "feeling" progresses to "craving". You also mentioned that imprints are created at "becoming". Can you kindly explain the difference between both occasions and how they relate to each other? Is karma or imprint the cause of the spinning of the samsaric cycle, or both?”
▌Is karma and karmic imprint the cause of samsara?
Rinpoche’s answer: That’s why we call it a circle. Did the chicken come first or the egg? There’s no one answer – it’s like a circle. That’s why we call samsara a circle; it goes round and round.
In the 12 links of dependent origination, there are two karmic imprints. First there’s “ignorance” and “volition”; volition is the karmic imprint. Ignorance and volition are the cause. Based on these two, we have the eight processes in this life. Within these eight, the last one – “becoming” – is also a karmic imprint. This karmic imprint is a new one that’s based on the old karmic imprint. Then we are born again, and we die again. The last two – “birth” and “death” – are the result.
▌The four steps that turn stealing an apple into a karmic imprint
How do we understand this process? For example, to have the karma of stealing an apple, we need four things.
First, the intention of “I want to steal this apple”.
Then you have to create what we call the action. You look around, “Oh, nobody is here, I am going to steal an apple”. This is action.
Third, there is the object of an apple. If you look around and see no apple, you cannot create the karma of stealing an apple.
Fourth, you take the apple you see and put it in your pocket, and then you come out and think, “OK, I got it”. That moment is what we call “completion”.
The moment you know “I stole it, I got the apple”, the imprint of stealing the apple goes into the subconsciousness. That is a tiny seed.
▌The 12 nidanas of samsaric cycle, beginning with “ignorance”
First there is “ignorance”, because you did not recognise that stealing is not good. In the end, it’s no good for you, no good for everybody. So there is ignorance.
Then you steal, and that becomes the imprint. That’s the “volition”.
Then the imprint becomes a tiny seed in the stream of consciousness. Number three is “consciousness”.
Next is “name and matter”. The seed grows bigger and bigger into the mind and body – that’s number four. “Mind” refers to the subconsciousness, and “body” refers to the subtle body.
Number five, it comes into the “six senses”, such as the ear, nose, tongue, the whole body.
Number six is “contact”, when the senses come into contact with an object.
Number seven is “feelings”. That’s when the unpleasant sensations come. So from the karmic imprint of stealing comes suffering. That’s the karmic result – suffering.
Then number eight, “craving” arises from the suffering.
Then there’s “grasping”.
At number 10, we create new karma, what we call “becoming”.
Then you will be born again, that’s number 11 – “birth”.
And you get old and die, that’s number 12 – “old age and death”.
So samsara goes round and round and round like that.
-- An excerpt from Day 4 of Mingyur Rinpoche’s teaching on The Meditation Practice of Heart Sutra, May 28, 2024. Organised by Tergar Asia.
