WEBVTT

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My question is: 
Why human beings have different karma?

NOTE Paragraph

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Thank you.

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Our friend is asking why 
each human being has a different karma?

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Are you sure?

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(Laughter)

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Are you sure that every human being 
has a different karma?

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(Laughter)

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I was quite sure but now....

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(Laughter)

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Karma is action, 
the word karma means action

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My name Nhat Hanh means one action only.

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Nhat means one, Hanh means action, 
and I don't know what action it is.

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(Laughter)

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Karma may be cause or may be effect.

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Karma hetu is action as a cause and 
karma-phala is karma as a fruit.

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And cause and effect they are together.

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You cannot remove 
the cause from the effect...

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...and you cannot remove 
the effect from the cause.

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It is like the corn kernel is the 
cause and the corn stalk is the effect

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but they are not two separate entities.

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You cannot remove the corn kernel 
from the plant of corn

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and you cannot remove 
the corn plant out from the corn kernel.

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So cause and effect 
are not two different entities.

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And one is the continuation of the other.

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The plant of corn is a 
continuation of the seed of corn

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in the direction of the future;

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and the kernel of corn 
continues the plant of corn

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in the direction of the past.

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Thanks to the corn kernel, the plant 
of corn has access to the ancestors.

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And thanks to the plant of corn, 
the ancestors have access to the future.

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It's a wonderful collaboration 
on the base of no-self.

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There is only a continuation and 
that is from the point of view of time.

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From the point of view of space,
it's the same.

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There is what we call collective karma 
and individual karma

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and you are talking about 
individual karma.

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And it's different from other karma,

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but if you reflect on the notion 
of individual and collective,

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you already make a big step.

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Because the notions of 
individual and collective

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are also a pair of opposites 
to be transcended.

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When a young person 
tells his father that:

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"This is my body. This is my life,"

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"I have the freedom, I have the right 
to do anything with my body, my life."

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That is a view that I am not you.

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"I have my own body, 
my own feeling, my own life."

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"I have the right to dispose my life
the way I want."

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And there are young people say like that.

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They don't know that they are the 
continuation of their father, their mother.

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And in fact they cannot harm, they do not 
have the right to harm their father, their own body.

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To commit suicide is an offence.

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You are killing your father,

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you are killing your mother, 
your ancestors when you commit suicide.

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This body is not yours.

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This body is a property of your father's, 
of your ancestors'.

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And with that kind of insight, you cannot 
behave like the way many people behave,

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based on wrong view.

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So to meditate is to see 
the nature of interbeing,

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non-self, which allow you to act properly.

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and not to cause suffering that is karma.

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And your body is not 
your individual property.

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It is also collective at the same time.

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Your body is a collective product 
of your nation's,

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of your people's, of your culture's

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of your ancestors'.

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So you are not strictly individual,

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you are partly collective,

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and it depends on a way of looking 
that you are more or less collective.

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Suppose you say that 
you have your nerves,

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your optic nerves behind your eyes.

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Your optic nerves look like 
something strictly individual.

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It only concerns you, 
your optic nerves,

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that is something absolutely individual.

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People don't see it, 
they are not concerned by it.

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It concerns only you.

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That is a notion of 
individual and collectiveness.

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But if you are a bus driver,

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our lives depend on your optic nerves.

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So your optic nerves are not 
individual any more,

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they belong to us because 
our lives depend on your optic nerves.

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So your optic nerve is something 
you describe as individual

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but in fact they are collective.

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So we have the notion of 
collective karma and individual karma.

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And any karma whether it is collective
or individual affects the whole.

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And the karma, the action 
might be better or worse.

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When 600 people come for a retreat,

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they read something together as collective action.

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They do sitting, walking, breathing, 
smiling, sharing,

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and this is a collective action 
and we profit from that.

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There are those in the world 
at this time they don't practice like us.

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and they drink and go dancing, and they 
spend their time in a very different way.

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And we have been able to set aside 
three weeks to come together

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and we are sharing a kind of 
collective action here

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that we believe to be a good action.

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because every day 
we water the seeds of mindfulness,

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understanding, compassion in us 
and the collective.

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But in the collective, 
you can see the individuals -

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there are those that 
do better than some others,

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there are those of us 
who can find it possible to transform,

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to leave behind the burden of worries 
in the first five days

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there are those who also 
need more than that,

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only on the third week that 
they can release, put down their worries.

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So in the collective, 
there is the individual

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and in the individual,
there is the collective.

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And there is no absolute individuality, 
there is no absolute collectivity.

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That is the truth. And that is why 
it is another pair of opposites.

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And if you practice looking deeply,
you can remove them.

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And you see that 
any karma affects all of us.

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Whatever good we are doing here 
is helping the world,

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so we have to be confident that 
the karma is not lost.

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any thought of compassion and forgiveness 
that we produce not only can help us heal

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but can help the world.


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So during the 21 days, we have been 
producing thoughts of compassion,

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of loving kindness, 
that is our best contribution to the world.

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And that is why our action of karma 
is neither different nor the same

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because sameness and otherness 
is also a pair of opposites.

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So right view lies in the fact that

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you are able to remove 
all these pairs of opposites.