Karma - A Brief Introduction

The myriad things you to others
Will return for you yourself to undergo.
Sutra on Cause and Effect Verse 130

According to the karma that is done,
That is the way the retribution is borne.
The doer is nonexistence .
All The Buddhas speak thus
Flower Adornment Sutra Verse 1o

Because of ignorance, living beings create karma. This term 'karma' actually means action or activity. This activity is based upon desire and is controlled by the law of cause and effect. For every good or bad action of the body, speech and of thought performed now, there will be a corresponding result which is experienced in the near future.

In every second of time, we are experiencing the results of our past body, speech and thought-karma and simultaneously create new karma which will bear fruit in the future. Hence, this karma is the main force that keep us in the cycle of rebirth, continually being reborn in the various realms of existence.

The Law of Karma explains why we undergo seemingly unexpected rewards and misfortunes. Everthing that happens to us, whether good or bad, has a reason or a cause, in the past.

Karma is actully a Sanskrit term that refers to that which is made by the activity of body,speech or mind. Now, what is the difference between cause and karma? Cause refers to a single incident, while karma is a long accumulation of causes.

Therefore, the conditions encountered by living beings differ. Some encounter great joy because they planted good seeds long ago, while others must undergo a great deal of hardship, always living in diffcult conditions because they have only sown bad causes.

In general, if you plant good seeds, you reap good fruits; if you plant bad seeds, you reap bad fruits.

Therefore, it is said that:-

To know the lives' causes,

Look at the rewards you are reaping today.

To find out about future lives,

You need but notice what you are doing right now.

Sutra on Cause and Effect Verse 32

Ksitigarbha

Ksitigarbha or Ti Tsang Wang Pusa in Chinese. He also a very popular Mahayana Buddhist Bodhisattva who is usually represented by a monk holding a six ring staff and a red fire ball which said to symbolised a jewel. The chinese name Ti Tsang is translated as "Earth Treasury"

Ti Tsang Wang Pu Sa is revered ad the protector of stillborn,miscarried and aborted babies. He is also the protective deity of travellers and guardian of pregnant women. He protects against earthquakes, and he a guardian of children.

Ksitigarbha is also renowned as the Bodhisattva of the Hell Beings and his vow not to achieve Buddhahood until all the hells are cleared. His famous vow follows: "Not until all the hells are emptied will I become a Buddha."

The history of Ksitigarbha is recorded in the Sutra of the Great Vows of Ksitigarbha Bodhisattva, one of the famous Mahayana sutras. This sutra is said to be spoken by The Lord Buddha to the devas of Thirty Three Devas as a mark of rememberence and gratitude for his mother, Mahadevi.

In this sutra, the Buddha revels that in the distant past, Ksitigarbha was a Brahman woman by the name of Sacred Girl. She was very sad when her mother died, because her mother had often been slanderous towards the Three Jewel.

To save her from hell, Sacred Girl sold whatever she had and use the money to buy offerings to the Buddha at that time, The Buddha pf Flower of Meditation and Englightenment. She made fervent prayers that her mother be spared from hell and requested the Buddha for assistance.

One day, while pleading for help she heard the voice of the Buddha asking her to go home immediately and there to sit down and chant his name if she wanted to know where her mother was.

She did so, her consciousness was transported to a Hell Realm. There, she met a guardian of hell and he told Sacred Girl that through her constant prayers and pious offerings, her mother had accumulated much merits and had already been released and had ascended to the heavens.

She was greatly relieve and she should be very happy, but the scenes of the sufferings in the Great Hells she had seen so touched her heart that she made this famous vow to her very best to relieve the sufferings of beings forever in their future lives in the eons to come.

Mantra:Namo Ti Tsang Wang Pusa

Hymm of Faith

"Faith is the source of the Way,
Faith is the mother of merit and virtue,
As they arise by faith,
All wholesome dharmas must by faith be nutured.
Faith cuts the tangled web of doubt,
Escaping loves delusive flow,
And opens wide to reveal the true and unsurpassed nirvana's road.

"Faith has no stain or mar,
Bringing the turbid mind purification,
Eradicating pride,
Of all respect and reverence the foundation.
Within the Dharma Treasury
Faith jewel outshines the fairest gold;
Hence every conduct our hands by faith are made pure.
Receive and surely hold.

"Faith is the healing source
By which our faculities are cleansed and quickened.
Nothing can turn its force.
The solid power of faith cannot be broken.
And when my faith forever
From all afflicition we depart,
The Buddha's merit will thus become the sole devotion of our hearts.

"With faith the mind's unmoved.
Free from attachment to condition arising;
Disasters far removed,
In the tranquility of faith abiding.
The bliss of faith victorious!
Among the conducts of all the worlds,
This faith alone is the one most rare and precious wish-fulfilling pearl.

"Profoundly we believe:
Trusting the Buddhas and the Buddhas' Dhamma,
Treading the Bodhi Path,
Forever followed by all true disiciples.
And to the Great Enlightenment
Our thoughts are joyfully inclined:
The Bodhisattva with this deep heart of faith produce the Bodhi Mind!"



Master Hsuan Hua
The City of Ten Thousand Buddha's handbook
Verse 235

Om Mani Padme Hum

It is certainly good to recite this mantra, Om Mani Padme Hum on a regular basis. At the same time, while we are reciting this mantra, we must also reflect on its meaning. For the meaning of this six syllable manta is very great and vast.

The first, OM, is the addition of three pure letters, i.e. A, U, and M representing the practitioner's impure body, speech and mind; and the same time it also signifies the pure exalted body, speech and mind of the Buddha.

Can we then transform our impure body, speech and mind into a pure body, speech and mind? "Yes, we can, says the Lord Buddha. All Buddhas are like ourselves depending on the path to attain Enlightenment. Buddhism does not determine that there is anyone from birth who is free from faults and possesses all good qualities. The development of the pure body, speech and mind comes gradually from leaving the impure states and their being transformed into the pure states.

How to are we supposed to transform? The path is is shown by the next four syllables, MANI, meaning jewel, telling us the method, the caring mind to become enlightened, compassion and love. Like a jewel which is capable of removing proverty or problems, this caring mind is also capable of removing the proverty or difficulties of endless rebirths and to get solitary peace. Similarly just as the jewel fulfills the wishes of sentient beings, so the caring intention is to become enlightened fulfills the wishes of all sentient beings.

The next two syllables, PADME, meaning lotus,symbolizes wisdom (knowledge). Like the lotus which grows in the pond and not tainted by the mud, so wisdom is capable of putting you in a non-contradiction situation and if you do not have wisdom, there would be a contradiction situation. There are different types of wisdom, one realising impermance, one realising that people are empty of self sufficient, one that realizes the emptiness of duality and wisdom that realizes the emptiness of inherent existence.

Purity must be gained by an indivisible unity of method and wisdom, represented by the last syllable, HUM, which indicates indivisibility. In the mantra, it refers to one conciousness in which there is the full form of both wisdom and method as one undivided entity. HUM, is the root syllable of Akshobya Buddha - the immovable, the unfluctuating, that which canot be disturbed by anything.

Hence, the six syllables, OM MANI PADME HUM, mean that in constant practice which is the indivisible union of method and wisdom, you can transform your impure body, speech and mind into the pure speech and mind of a Buddha. However, it is often said that you should not seek Buddhahood outside of yourself; as the substances for the achievement of Buddhahood are within yourself.

As Maitreya Buddha says in his Uttara Tantra,"All beings naturally have the Buddha nature in themselves. We have within us the seed of purity, the essence of a One Gone Thus, that is to be transformed and fully developed into Buddhahood."

Extract from a lecture by His Holiness The Dalai Lama at the Kalmuck Mongolian Buddhist Center, New Jersey, USA.

Samantabhadra

Samantabhadra or The Bodhisattva of Universal Virtue usually rides on a six-tusked white elephant. In chinese, she is known as Pu Hsien Pusa. The six tusks represents overcoming the attachment to the senses. It also signifies the Six Paramitas (perfections), i.e. charity,morality, paitence, diligence, contemplation and wisdom.

The paramitas are the six ways Bodhisattvas pursue their spiritual practice to attain full enlightenment to benefit all sentient beings. Samantabhadra embodies all the practices which must be fulfiled in order to attain Buddhahood.

According to the Flower Garland Sutra, a Bodhisattva practitioner must dedicate all of his or her efforts towards the enlightenment of all sentient beings and to dedicate everything for the welfare of all.

In this way, all selfishness and the self-cherishing manner are completely transcended, and one enters the ocean of merits of all enlightened beings.

Samantabhadra Bodhisattva is also famous for his practice of the Bodhisattva's Ten Great Vows:
1. To respect all Buddhas
2. To make praises to infinite number of Buddhas
3. To make extensive offerings to all the Buddhas
4. To confess and purify all negative karmas
5. To rejoice in the merits of others
6. To request the turning of the Dharma Wheel (Buddha's teachings)
7. To request the Buddha to remain in the world to benefit all beings
8. To always follow the Buddha's path
9. To live harmoniously with all living beings
10.To dedicate all merits for the welfare of all living beings

A chinese monk, Hui Chih, went to Er Mei Shan in China, and built a temple devoted to Samantabhadra in 399 A.D. Since than, Er Mei Shan has become the sacred site of Samantabhadra.

Guru Padmasambhava

According to Tibetean legends, Guru Padmasambhava or the Guru Rinpoche was incarnated as an eight year old child appearing in a lotus blossom on the Dhanakosha Lake, in Uddiyana, somewhere in the valley of ancient India, now Pakistan.

His special natural abilities was recognized by the king, and he married Mandarava , one of his daugthers, to him. More than a thousand years ago, Guru Rinpoche, the Lotus born blessed this earth with his presence.

It was Guru Padmasambhava who defeated all opposing forces and set up Buddhism in its supreme form in Tibet. He taught the Tibetean King Trisong Detsen : " The root of the secret mantra, the tantric swift methods, is to keep the samaya committments. The roots of samaya , the bond to one's spiritual teacher teacher, are devotion and effort. And the root of these two is prayer: to pray to your spiritual Master and yidam deity."

There are many blessed prayers to invoke Guru Rinpoche the most famous and well known is called The Seven Line Prayer and the last line which is also his mantra.

The Seven Line Prayer

In the north-west land of Orgyen,
In the heart of a lotus flower,
Endowed with the most marvelous attaiments,
You're renowned as the lotus-born,
Surrounded by many host of dakinis
Following in your footsteps
I pray to you: come and bless me with your grace!

Mantra

Om Ah Hung Benza Guru Pema Siddhi Hung

Manjusri

Manjusri is the eldest Bodhisattvas and usually known as the Prince of Wisdom. Actually, the word "Manjusri: is a sanskrit word meaning "wonderful virtue" or "wonderful auspicious". Of all the Bodhisattvas, Manjusri has the greatest wisdom, and so he is also known as "The Great Wise Bodhisattva Manjusri. Of all the Bodhisattvas, he hold the highest rank, and he is listed first before before the Bodhisattva who Observes the Sound of the World.

There are four great Bodhisattvas, the first one is Manjusri, the second one is Avalokitesvara or Kuan Yin the third one is Bodhisattva Universal Worthy or Samantabhadra and finally the fourth Bodhisattva is Bodhisattva Ksitigarbha or Earth Store. (In chinese Ti Tsang Wang Pusa).

According to Buddhist legends, Bodhisattva Manjusri stays in Mount Wutai in China. He became a Buddha long time ago and was called Buddha of the Race of Honored Dragon Kings. After enlightenment, he manifested as a Bodhisattva in order to practice the Way, teach and transform living being, assisting the Buddha Sakyamuni to spread the dharma.

Mantra

Om Ah Ra Pa Tsa Na Dhi