Ven. Thubten Dondrub on Karma

Image by Paul Bourke

If we investigate what is the essential teaching of the Buddha, what is the single most important teaching of the Buddha, some people say it might be a teaching on compassion, which, in its highest form, is the teaching about bodhicitta. Some people might say that the most important teaching of the Buddha is the teaching of the true nature of self and phenomena--the wisdom teachings of the Buddha.

I think that the single most important teaching of the Buddha is the teaching on the law of cause and effect--karma--because it contains within it all of the other teachings. By understanding the law of cause and effect, and practicing it in one's life, one can develop loving-kindness and compassion, and eventually, bodhicitta. Practicing the law of cause and effect in our daily lives is the way to develop wisdom. And by practicing and giving central importance in our daily life to observing the law of cause and effect as the single most important thing, moment by moment, we develop renunciation.

Lama Thubten Zopa Rinpoche makes this joke: "This ordinary mindfulness is not good enough--now I'm picking up a knife, now I'm stabbing this person, now I'm stabbing this person very carefully." That kind of mindfulness is not helpful. Real mindfulness has a moral connotation of knowing or being aware that what one is doing is either virtuous or nonvirtuous. Knowing that this action of body, speech, and mind is going to produce some happiness now and in the future is the kind of mindfulness that we need--mindfulness mixed with an understanding of and faith in the law of cause and effect.

From Mandala Magazine (Aug/Sept 2005), reprinted in Buddhadharma (Winter 2005).