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My question is: [br]Why human beings have different karma?

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Thank you.

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Our friend is asking why [br]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 [br]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, [br]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, [br]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 [br]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 [br]the cause from the effect...

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...and you cannot remove [br]the effect from the cause.

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It is like the corn kernel is the [br]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 [br]from the plant of corn

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and you cannot remove [br]the corn plant out from the corn kernel.

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So cause and effect [br]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 [br]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 [br]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 [br]of corn has access to the ancestors.

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

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

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

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

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There is what we call collective karma [br]and individual karma

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and you are talking about [br]individual karma.

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And it's different from other karma,

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

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you already make a big step.

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Because the notions of [br]individual and collective

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are also a pair of opposites [br]to be transcended.

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When a young person [br]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 [br]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, [br]my own feeling, my own life."

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"I have the right to dispose my life[br]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 [br]continuation of their father, their mother.

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And in fact they cannot harm, they do not [br]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, [br]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, [br]of your ancestors'.

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And with that kind of insight, you cannot [br]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 [br]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 [br]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 [br]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 [br]that you are more or less collective.

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Suppose you say that [br]you have your nerves,

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your optic nerves behind your eyes.

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Your optic nerves look like [br]something strictly individual.

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It only concerns you, [br]your optic nerves,

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that is something absolutely individual.

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

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It concerns only you.

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That is a notion of [br]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 [br]individual any more,

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

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So your optic nerve is something [br]you describe as individual

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but in fact they are collective.

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So we have the notion of [br]collective karma and individual karma.

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

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And the karma, the action [br]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, [br]smiling, sharing,

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and this is a collective action [br]and we profit from that.

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

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

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

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and we are sharing a kind of [br]collective action here

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that we believe to be a good action.

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because every day [br]we water the seeds of mindfulness,

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understanding, compassion in us [br]and the collective.

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But in the collective, [br]you can see the individuals -

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there are those that [br]do better than some others,

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

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to leave behind the burden of worries [br]in the first five days;

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there are those who also [br]need more than that,

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

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So in the collective, [br]there is the individual

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and in the individual,[br]there is the collective.

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And there is no absolute individuality, [br]there is no absolute collectivity.

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

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And if you practice looking deeply,[br]you can remove them.

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And you see that [br]any karma affects all of us.

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Whatever good we are doing here [br]is helping the world,

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

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any thought of compassion and forgiveness [br]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 [br]producing thoughts of compassion,

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

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

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because sameness and otherness [br]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 [br]all these pairs of opposites.[br]