Karma and Criticism
Oct. 12th, 2006 12:59 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
icarusAccording to Gyaltrul Rinpoche's teachings on Vajrasattva in 1986, if someone criticizes your faults publicly and you manage to not get angry, then the karma of that fault will be purified. Even if what's said is completely unfair and untrue, it would probably still be purifying some old past karma. (I don't think you have to be passive, but often responding won't help.)
If everything that's said about your faults is true, then you have to be careful to have as much compassion and gentleness for yourself as you would have for your closest friend or your cat. We're all human, and we all have faults, and it takes time and effort to work through them. The difference is that angry people say you "are" this way as if it (or anything) is a permanent state. The truth is, as a friend of mine told me last Friday, nothing is permanent. When you were 12, were you anything like how you are today? She said she had no concept of what she would be like in ten years.
This is why hatred, greed, ignorance, etc., are called "maras" or "demons." When you watch it even looks like a demonic swirl.
According to Rinpoche, a crowd of "enemies" can be more beneficial than gentle friends, because it can force you to go back to something like Buddhism to deal with your responses. H.H. Dalai Lama calls communist China his greatest teacher. For my part, I've been very lazy about Dharma for a long time. But it's not beneficial to them so I'm sorry about that. Other than practice, I'm not sure what one can do, other than to not prod it.
Oh. There is a practice one can do even if you're busy. What you do is breathe in (through your nose, slowly) all their negativity and anger into yourself. And don't leave anyone out, include Bush, Iraq, everyone. Visualize it pulling away from them and all of the suffering and misery they're creating is brought into yourself. Consider they are completely freed from it and any suffering.They're happy and content, freed of all negativity and causes for future negativity.
Then, slowly (through your nose again), you breath out all your good karma, good fortune, happiness, even the good created by doing the practice, and so they're lives are filled with good conditions, and they're completely happy and content.
It's connected to compassion (wishing others to be free of suffering) and kindness (wishing others to be happy). It's also connected to equanimity because most of the time, okay, at least most of my problems in life are caused when I want myself to be happy and I don't care much about the happiness of others. Other people are probably more compassionate than me.
Ponlop Rinpoche taught in 2001 that if you mean well, most of your karma comes from your intention.
What I don't know is if you piss someone off, and they go on to be very angry, how is that interconnected? We can't control the actions of others, so we can't blame ourselves if they're angry, even if the response might have been predictable. Shantideva says don't participate, just do your best not to upset their apple carts and work on your own mind. So that's practical. He lived in a monastery where the monks were always angry with him for one reason or another.
Vajrayana is about interconnectedness, to be really vague and use a word that my teachers don't use so it's probably inaccurate. There are ways to consider even the worst of all these angry people the face of the Buddha (sorry, thinking out loud here). Even on an ordinary level, they're benefitting me by causing me to think about these things. At the core of even the most negative emotion is buddhanature because that's the essence of everything. I'm the one that differentiates between "this is a friend" and "this is an enemy" based on my desire to be comfortable, liked, praised. So if they've made me think about these things, as your email has made me think this through, then you're both pretty good friends.
At the same time, they're creating negative karma. I'm not sure of that point of responsibility. Hmm. Can you make someone else create bad karma?
I think it doesn't matter. I should be concerned about them whether I'm responsible or not, doing practice to benefit them regardless, and the habit of assigning blame is probably a bad one on my part. Because I'll either say it's all my fault, or I'll defend myself and say "it's not my fault!" Yeah, it was something my mom said, and something in Shantideva, and also what Gyaltrul Rinpoche said too: blame and praise are two halves of the same thing, something to neither avoid nor seek. Assigning blame is also pointless when you should just do your best and practice compassion.
I think that's right.
On the other hand, in the description of the karma of killing, if you're George Bush and order someone to, say, assassinate Chavez, both the assassin and George Bush get the karma of killing (and I think the greater portion is on Bush). But that's a direct link, a direct line of command. If Bush said randomly to the room "I think someone should assassinate Chavez" it wouldn't be the same, because he didn't intend (we hope) for the assassin to take him seriously.
We're back to intention again. If he deliberately manipulated the assassin into taking action, then he'd be just as responsible.
It's all about motivation.
Maybe a truly compassionate person wouldn't care about blame because they would be more concerned about the suffering people experience and less concerned about legalizing. What if it isn't your fault? Should you act any differently or not care? "Not my fault, so it's your problem"? So that comes to the same point. Karma isn't simple, but maybe what you need to do in response to it can be quite simple.
If everything that's said about your faults is true, then you have to be careful to have as much compassion and gentleness for yourself as you would have for your closest friend or your cat. We're all human, and we all have faults, and it takes time and effort to work through them. The difference is that angry people say you "are" this way as if it (or anything) is a permanent state. The truth is, as a friend of mine told me last Friday, nothing is permanent. When you were 12, were you anything like how you are today? She said she had no concept of what she would be like in ten years.
This is why hatred, greed, ignorance, etc., are called "maras" or "demons." When you watch it even looks like a demonic swirl.
According to Rinpoche, a crowd of "enemies" can be more beneficial than gentle friends, because it can force you to go back to something like Buddhism to deal with your responses. H.H. Dalai Lama calls communist China his greatest teacher. For my part, I've been very lazy about Dharma for a long time. But it's not beneficial to them so I'm sorry about that. Other than practice, I'm not sure what one can do, other than to not prod it.
Oh. There is a practice one can do even if you're busy. What you do is breathe in (through your nose, slowly) all their negativity and anger into yourself. And don't leave anyone out, include Bush, Iraq, everyone. Visualize it pulling away from them and all of the suffering and misery they're creating is brought into yourself. Consider they are completely freed from it and any suffering.They're happy and content, freed of all negativity and causes for future negativity.
Then, slowly (through your nose again), you breath out all your good karma, good fortune, happiness, even the good created by doing the practice, and so they're lives are filled with good conditions, and they're completely happy and content.
It's connected to compassion (wishing others to be free of suffering) and kindness (wishing others to be happy). It's also connected to equanimity because most of the time, okay, at least most of my problems in life are caused when I want myself to be happy and I don't care much about the happiness of others. Other people are probably more compassionate than me.
Ponlop Rinpoche taught in 2001 that if you mean well, most of your karma comes from your intention.
What I don't know is if you piss someone off, and they go on to be very angry, how is that interconnected? We can't control the actions of others, so we can't blame ourselves if they're angry, even if the response might have been predictable. Shantideva says don't participate, just do your best not to upset their apple carts and work on your own mind. So that's practical. He lived in a monastery where the monks were always angry with him for one reason or another.
Vajrayana is about interconnectedness, to be really vague and use a word that my teachers don't use so it's probably inaccurate. There are ways to consider even the worst of all these angry people the face of the Buddha (sorry, thinking out loud here). Even on an ordinary level, they're benefitting me by causing me to think about these things. At the core of even the most negative emotion is buddhanature because that's the essence of everything. I'm the one that differentiates between "this is a friend" and "this is an enemy" based on my desire to be comfortable, liked, praised. So if they've made me think about these things, as your email has made me think this through, then you're both pretty good friends.
At the same time, they're creating negative karma. I'm not sure of that point of responsibility. Hmm. Can you make someone else create bad karma?
I think it doesn't matter. I should be concerned about them whether I'm responsible or not, doing practice to benefit them regardless, and the habit of assigning blame is probably a bad one on my part. Because I'll either say it's all my fault, or I'll defend myself and say "it's not my fault!" Yeah, it was something my mom said, and something in Shantideva, and also what Gyaltrul Rinpoche said too: blame and praise are two halves of the same thing, something to neither avoid nor seek. Assigning blame is also pointless when you should just do your best and practice compassion.
I think that's right.
On the other hand, in the description of the karma of killing, if you're George Bush and order someone to, say, assassinate Chavez, both the assassin and George Bush get the karma of killing (and I think the greater portion is on Bush). But that's a direct link, a direct line of command. If Bush said randomly to the room "I think someone should assassinate Chavez" it wouldn't be the same, because he didn't intend (we hope) for the assassin to take him seriously.
We're back to intention again. If he deliberately manipulated the assassin into taking action, then he'd be just as responsible.
It's all about motivation.
Maybe a truly compassionate person wouldn't care about blame because they would be more concerned about the suffering people experience and less concerned about legalizing. What if it isn't your fault? Should you act any differently or not care? "Not my fault, so it's your problem"? So that comes to the same point. Karma isn't simple, but maybe what you need to do in response to it can be quite simple.
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no subject
Date: 2006-10-13 04:05 am (UTC)The first part is about the value of the practice of patience. That's from Gyaltrul Rinpoche, and he referenced Shantideva's Bodhisattva's Guide.
The next part about gentle with yourself is from the Lama at Nalandabodi. He taught that the first person you have to have compassion for is yourself. If you're hard on yourself, how can you expect to be gentle with others?
The part about maras is from sutras on the life of the Buddha.
The part on the value of enemies, yes, you know that.
I find the idea of actually deliberately taking in other people's negativity rather scary though... Sounds a little self-destructive.
Breathing in the negativity is a practice called "Sending and Receiving" and it was taught by Gyaltrul Rinpoche in 1986 as well (wow, I learned a lot from him). He says most people worry when they hear of taking in all that negativity, "Won't I get sick?"
He joked, "If so, then all the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas are laying around in hospitals! They all do this practice."
In fact, he told us this practice is especially good to do when you're sick. It's one of those things that's counterintuitive. My friend tried it when she was so sick she couldn't get out of bed. She said, "I feel silly saying this but... Rinpoche was right." WG, even though he's not Buddhist, also does this and says it really works.
It can be done any time, driving your car, while standing in the checkout line.
Bodhisattvas, according again to Gyaltrul Rinpoche, practice the "four immeasurables": kindness (wishing others to be happy), compassion (wishing others to be free of suffering), joy (happiness at the good fortune and good deeds of others), and equanimity... actually, this one's a toughie. I'll look up an official definition but for now, I understand it to be valuing others equally with yourself. Wow, awkward phrasing. But Rinpoche explained that normally we value our own welfare quite a lot, and others are about as important as ants. If we stub our toes that's a terrible suffering, while we can read about people dying in Iraq and think "hmm, how sad, what's on TV?"
He said the way we normally view things, the order of importance starts with ourselves, then the next-most important are the people close to us, then the people we like, so on, so forth. Everything is viewed through a skewed lens of our ego. He joked that when he was being fired on by the Chinese in Tibet, he protected his head over the rest of his body because he associated his head more closely with "me" -- so even parts of our body get preferential treatment.
I bet this is getting long, so I'll post this part.