Teaching You Zazen 16: Consciousness and the Four Great Elements

2007/11/10 11:44:12

In the eyes of materialist and idealist fools, consciousness and the Four Great Elements have nothing to do with each other. To them, the Four Greats are matter; consciousness is spirit. Then it becomes "does matter determine consciousness, or does consciousness determine matter?" — and with this property and that property, they've arrived at the "fundamental question of philosophy."

The Four Greats are merely a particular form of karmic force. And within consciousness there are also the Four Greats — consciousness is pulled by the karmic force of the Four Greats while simultaneously creating new Four-Great karmic forces. The idea of severing consciousness from matter is a completely idiotic notion.

Consciousness and matter are, in essence, both generated by karmic force. And karmic force is not a conceptual thing like "matter" or "consciousness" — it is acting, generating, and destroying every moment within the world that karmic force itself evolves.

Any thought of yours, any unconscious mental impulse, any action, any behavior — all are being pulled by karmic force while simultaneously creating new karmic force. This endless, entangling, continuing web of karmic force is omnipresent and timeless.

Every karmic force is like planting a seed. Once the conditions align, it will take root and sprout. As the saying goes: "Ordinary beings fear effects; bodhisattvas fear causes." Given such a cause, such an effect follows — this is a collective karmic force shared by all sentient beings, just as everyone on Earth is subject to gravity.

Cause and effect never fail, and this has nothing to do with fatalism. The karmic force you plant will ultimately manifest in the form of component forces, but what the resultant force is when these component forces manifest has no fatalistic coloring whatsoever. For example, a person who killed someone in a past life — if they planted countless good causes over innumerable lifetimes, when this killing karma ripens and manifests, the final result may not necessarily manifest as being killed, because what ultimately manifests is the resultant, not the individual component. It might manifest as being hit by a stone and bleeding a little, or in some other form. But if one continues to commit evil deeds, then when the karma ripens and manifests, it may form the result of a hellish existence after a wretched death.

Some karmic forces from causes planted in this lifetime may ripen and manifest within this very lifetime. This is especially true for those with particularly great karmic force whose conditions for manifestation are also present in the current lifetime. For example, if you kill someone now, the chance of escaping punishment is rather small. And in order to avoid punishment, you'll commit more evil karma — all of which will be repaid in full, not one bit less.

Some might say: "Countless corrupt officials are roaming free right now, perfectly at ease with themselves — where's the immediate retribution?" In fact, evil deeds not receiving immediate retribution is itself a form of bad karma. This is merely due to collective karmic conditions that prevent the full manifestation of immediate retribution in this lifetime. To change this requires the collective transformation of all people. More importantly, in any society formed by collective karma, if this bad karma of evil deeds going unpunished is not changed, it will ultimately be repaid with interest. Think about it — where is the Qing Dynasty now? Where is the Ming Dynasty? Where is the Chiang dynasty?

Think about why there was the karmic retribution of the Cultural Revolution. Don't imagine that the Cultural Revolution's bad karma was only the business of certain groups of people. It was formed by collective karma — no one can escape responsibility. Some ask: "If faced with such a situation, can't one escape? Jump into the water and die?" Such thinking is the way of fools. How can one escape karma? You think by drowning yourself, the karma won't follow you? You think only Earth has Cultural Revolutions? In other worlds, similar karmic conditions aren't waiting for you?

Evil karma must be faced head-on. Collective karma must be collectively faced head-on. For example, don't think that by not discussing it, the karmic force will automatically vanish. Not discussing it will only cause this karmic force to erupt in an even greater form.

All past karma is merely a component force. It requires conditions in the present lifetime to manifest, and the form of the ultimate resultant manifestation is created jointly with the conditions of this lifetime. Every person, across countless lifetimes of birth and death, has planted countless seeds of bad karma, and equally countless seeds of good karma. The question is: how to ensure that when these seeds sprout and manifest, the resultant takes a relatively optimal form. And this resultant manifestation in turn constitutes new karmic seeds.

For any person, the seeds already planted cannot be changed. The only thing you can change is the form in which they sprout and manifest, and the nature of the new seeds thereby planted. This applies equally to the collective karma of all people. Our reality is the manifestation of our collective karma — a manifestation of the resultant force. This manifestation can be changed. All unreasonable realities can be changed. And every change is a new seed. Whether it's a bad seed or a good seed depends on the resultant force of every person in each present moment.

Change the world — starting with each individual.