Student: If a person has achieved enlightenment, has he or she purified all the past karmic imprints?
Venerable Gyatso: With Enlightenment, the state of Buddhahood, one has definitely destroyed all the accumulation of negative karma. All karma associated with samsara, even virtuous karma associ-
ated with attachment to samsara, has been overcome. They cannot ripen.
So your next question may be: How come Devadatta could give Buddha a hard time? He hit him with a stone and tried to kill him. How could this happen if the Buddha did not have the karma?
There are two ways to answer this question. The Theravadian point of view is that, although Buddha’s mind was enlightened, his body was still a true suffering. It was still a product of karma and affliction and was capable of being wounded. The Mahayanist point of view is that the Buddha was enlightened before he took birth as Prince Siddartha. There was some karmic connection from Devadatta’s side in previous lives with Buddha. But Buddha allowed the injury to happen, through his wisdom. This was a way to teach. Because he even said, “This occurred because of some karma with Devadatta in the past.” And so, he used the situation to teach the way in which karma is very sticky, and that we have to work hard to get rid of
karma. In reality, he did not have karma. From a Mahayana point of view, the Buddhas have totally destroyed their karma.
Still, from our side, we have karmic relationships with Buddha. I think last time I mentioned the five close disciples of Buddha who went on a strict fast with him when he fasted for six years and looked like a skeleton. These five disciples were with him and then when he took some food, they renounced him. They went away, saying, “He has given up his asceticism.” Then he sat under the Bodhi tree
and achieved Enlightenment. Then he went to the beer Park and he taught them the Four Noble Truths.
In previous lives, they had been Yakshas, meat-eating beings who ate the Bodhisattva alive, whilst he was meditating in the forest. As they were killing him, chopping off his limbs and eating his flesh, he made the prayer that when he eventually achieved Enlightenment, they would be his first disciples.
And so, through his prayer, he created the karmic situation such that they were able to meet him in the future. There were others who couldn’t see Buddha because of the karma from their side. They saw somebody who appeared to them to be ordinary, not a teacher, so they did not bother listening. From our side, we have karmic relation- ships with the Buddhas. From the Buddhas’ side, they do not have karma.
Student: How about Buddha’s headaches?
Venerable Gyatso: I think it is the some thing. Arhats can have headaches. I think from the Buddha’s side, it is definite that the Buddha had no mental or physical suffering. The mental factor of feeling is always blissful, in the Buddha’s mind. Buddhas can mani- fest headaches in order to use that situation as a teaching. They do not experience any pain at all. But the Theravadian explanation is because their body is still a true suffering, a product of karma and affliction, then they can experience headaches.
Student: Why only be happy when bad karma ripens? Why not seek to purify past karma?
Venerable Gyatso: Both actions are important. Karma is just one of many causes for our pleasant and unpleasant experiences. When something goes wrong, we reflect, “All right, this is the result of negative karma.” It is not just leaving it at that and thinking, Oh well, that is one less. It is saying, “Wow – I’ve still got millions of negative karma that have not ripened. I must do something about it now. I must purify them.”
I agree with you – purifying is part of this practice. We have to actively engage in activities of purification.
Student: Yes, but sometimes it does not give you the extra oomph! Venerable Gyatso: That is why we need the problems. (Laughter) That is exactly the point. Exactly the point. If it is going easy we can
be lulled into complacency.
THE HELL REALMS
Student: That means beings in the hell realms rejoice more than us? Venerable Gyatso: The trouble is, they cannot. Their mind is so swept
up in self-pity and misery and anger, that they cannot generate vir- tue. If they could, in that situation, the virtue would be strong. The Buddha himself developed Bodhicitta in the hell realms… I forget why he was in hell. This was when he was a Bodhisattva.
He was experiencing the torture of being forced to carry some- thing by these hell protectors, hallucinated demons. There were sev- eral people being forced to pull a heavy load. He felt compassion for the other person, and tried to carry his load as well. Instantly, through that moment of compassion, his hell rebirth ceased, and he
was reborn in the divine celestial realms. But generally, unless we have such strong imprints of Bodhicitta, it is impossible to create vir- tue in the hell realms.
That is why we must do it now. As humans, we have so much opportunity. We have some respite from our suffering. We can sit back and reflect on the opportunity to change our minds. Even as humans, it is hard. As hell beings, it is impossible.