All of our actions have consequences. The Ten Precepts caution us about acting in ways that result in the deepening of suffering: willful killing, lying, slandering others, indulging anger and pride, misusing sexuality, and so on.

If we are not acting in these ways, we will be acting in other ways. For example, if we are not willfully killing (ignoring the value and meaning of the lives of other beings, and our fundamental oneness with them), we will be acting in a more kind and sympathetic way. Again, if we are not being deceitful, we will be being truthful. And so on. And acting in these more positive ways results in the diminishing of suffering.

The law of karma is always functioning. It never "turns off." If we ignore it, it keeps right on working. It does not care whether we pay attention to it or not. But if we ignore it, the consequences of that ignoring will eventually become very painful indeed. Such pain eventually gets our attention.

But what if we do not ignore the law of karma, but instead respect it, and allow it to teach us? In this case, we benefit immensely. In fact, we can have confidence that by respecting the law of karma—putting the Precepts into practice, and thereby learning from the law of karma at the deepest level (the level of genuine spiritual transformation)—we will be led to the full cessation of suffering.

This "confidence" is the same thing as trust. We can have complete confidence in the law of karma: we can trust the law of karma absolutely. To train in such trust is to be constantly reminded that, while we are of the Eternal, we are not God. We cannot wave a magic wand and erase our own karmic inheritance or that of other beings; we cannot stop other people from making their own karma; we cannot turn this world in which so much raw karma is constantly being made (and reborn) into a heaven.

But there is something that we can always do: we can do our own training. In whatever situation we find ourselves, we can choose to look up spiritually rather than down. We can choose to take refuge in our own Buddha Nature in pure meditation, rather than seeking an enduring refuge in shifting external conditions. We can choose to follow in the footsteps of the Buddhas and Ancestors rather than carelessly following confused and deluded beings deeper into ignorance and sorrow.

Just as in building a house, one has to lay foundations, make a floor, erect walls, put up a roof, and do many other things, so in walking the Path of the "return flowing" to the Eternal, we commit ourselves to a process of continuing effort. Every step of the way, we are being helped by the law of karma. In the beginning, we have no idea of the degree to which we are being supported and helped all along the way. When one day we begin to see the degree to which we have always been in the hand of the Eternal, our gratitude knows no bounds.

NEWS OF THE TEMPLES