c. Karma: Cause and Effect

The results of beneficial and harmful actions will follow me. This means the various individual experiences of pleasure and pain undergone by beings in the six classes occur purely as a result of their own positive and negative actions. As it says in the Sutra of a Hundred Actions:

It is the variety of actions,

Which creates the variety of beings.

And in the Sutra of Advice to the King (Rajavavadaka Sutra), it says:

When his time has come, even a king has to die,

And neither his friends nor his wealth can follow him.

So for us – wherever we stay, wherever we go –

Karma follows us like a shadow.

Although the results of our actions do not manifest immediately, they never go to waste. The Sutra of a Hundred Actions says:

The actions of beings never go to waste,

Even in a hundred aeons.

They are accumulated, and, once the time comes,

The result will come to fruition.

Even tiny negative actions should be avoided. The Sutra of the Wise and Foolish says:

Do not disregard small misdeeds, thinking they are harmless,

Because even tiny sparks of flame,

Can set fire to a mountain of hay.

Once, during the era of the Buddha Kashyapa’s teachings, there was a monk called Shebu Kapila[i] who teased the other monks by calling them names such as ‘horse-head’. Altogether he called them by eighteen such names. It is said that later, during the time of Buddha Shakyamuni, he was reborn as a fish-like sea monster with eighteen heads. It is also said that a monk who compared another monk to a monkey was reborn as a monkey for five hundred lifetimes. And there are countless other examples which could be mentioned.

The great Bodhisattva Shantideva said:

If a single moment’s negativity,

Can lead to an aeon in the Avici hell,

Then with all our harmful acts accumulated in samsara without beginning,

What chance is there of going to the higher realms?

The Sutra of the Wise and Foolish also states:

Do not disregard small positive acts either, thinking they are without benefit,

Because even tiny drops of water,

Will eventually fill a large container.

In the past when the King Mandhata was a beggar, he threw a handful of peas to Buddha Kshantisharana. Four fell into the Buddha’s alms bowl and two struck his heart. As a result, he reigned as ruler over the four continents for eighty thousand years, then became ruler in the heaven of the Four Great Kings for eighty thousand years, and finally ruled the kingdom of Indra for half as long. Then there was the beggar woman who offered a bowl of water to a shravaka disciple of Buddha Shakyamuni and was reborn in the heaven of the Thirty-three. It is also said that if an animal hears the name of a buddha once, they will escape the lower realms and be reborn in the higher states of existence. The benefits of positive actions are inconceivable.

The Treasury of Essential Instructions says:

Listen to the words of the master, the most cherished instructions!

Study the words of the victorious one, and put your trust in them!

By day and by night, dedicate your virtue and limit your misdeeds!

Reflect on how the interdependence of cause and effect will determine your future!

Relinquish your attachment to the body and possessions you hold so dear!

And apply the points of the tantras, agamas and upadeshas to your mind!

Take this to heart.