Understanding Cause and Effect in Life's Injustices

Shakyamuni Buddha teaches that our inherent tendencies shape our responses, highlighting the complex interplay of cause and effect in life.

### Understanding Cause and Effect: Insights from Shakyamuni Buddha on Life's Injustices
* 🧘 The discussion centers around the question, "**Why do bad things happen to good people?**" highlighting the disparities in life experiences where good individuals suffer while seemingly bad people thrive.
* 💡 Shakyamuni Buddha's teachings emphasize the **law of cause and effect**, encapsulated in the term "renge," which signifies that **every effect has a cause**, and our perceptions of **good and bad are often subjective**.
* 🔄 The concept of karma suggests that we **carry experiences from previous lives**, necessitating **personal growth and learning** through various challenges encountered in life.
* ⚖ The speaker illustrates the implications of capital punishment, arguing that **killing the body does not eliminate the spirit**, potentially **perpetuating a cycle of violence and suffering** in future generations.
* 🌸 The lotus flower symbolizes the **potential for growth and enlightenment** despite being rooted in the mud, representing the inherent ability within each person to **rise above their circumstances**.
* 🌪 The speaker also discusses how external stimuli can activate latent tendencies within us, leading to reactions that may not align with our **true selves**, thereby emphasizing the importance of **self-awareness and meditation**.
* 📜 Biblical references are used to support the idea that the **consequences of our actions can resonate through generations**, reinforcing the **interconnectedness of human experiences**.
* 🔑 Ultimately, the message is that understanding our inherent causes and embracing meditation can lead to **personal transformation**, allowing us to **break free from negative cycles** and **take responsibility for our lives**.

We're here at the Christian village church, and we're doing, I'm sharing this morning study on Shakyamuni Buddha, and we've titled the subject Why Bad Things Happen to Good People. These are questions that affect our lives dramatically. Many good people die poor and in all kinds of horrible situations. Well, you see some miserable person, you know, seems they always get what they want. Well, there's got the nice car, and you know, yet they're miserable, never gets sick, and so forth and so on, and you wonder what the heck is going on. What kind of isn't consistency is this? And Chucky's muni buddha taught it in a word that is part of the buddha chant nam-myoho-renge-kyo. Ward is renge, renge, and what that actually means is the law of cause and effect, right? See, I did that intentionally to save anybody and one lady in here that noticed there wasn't a you in here, and she just happens to be a schoolteacher. Mate, I say anymore. Hey, I

left the you out to sea, and there you are, our city, our Regina. Never said a word, but there it is. Thank you very much, cause and effect. In other words, what shall a moonie Buddha said? Every effect that exists, something happened to cause it, no matter what it is. And when it happens to a very good person or what we would think is a very bad person, of course, what we think are bad persons are people who don't follow the same norms that we do. We set up the structures, and if they don't follow these structures, there's something wrong with them. They may be following the right path, of course, but we decided that they're wrong because they don't follow our way. So, the law of cause and effect, or ring game, something Jesus Christ taught reincarnation only to go into it, but he did. Let's say, for instance, if indeed the question of reincarnation and karma are a positive thing, nobody can prove anything. Well, let's just take a look at these things. Karma simply says that you

have to live out these experiences that you pick up from life to life, and you have to learn the lessons of life and overcome these various things that you may have learned in a previous life. You have to work your way out, and you have to work it and understand and develop your life and so forth and so on. You have thousands of lives in order to do it. Of course, Jesus Christ looked at John the Baptist and he says, You see that fellow over there? That's Elijah who was to come. But let me ask some, let's say, and each of us has to come into this life. We carry in these various inequities or these problems that we have, and we have to work them out in order to go into a higher stage in a life in the next life or whatever. If indeed we are our brother's keeper, then we have a responsibility, have we not, to maybe help another person who is undergoing a particular thing that they're having trouble with, to break that thing so that they can go on in.

life and continue on in a big picture of life, not in the 60 or 70 or 80 years that we give each other here because that's not true. I mean, life goes on thousand years. Let me - a few weeks ago, there was a situation in Washington state, I believe, with a young fellow who had taken part in terrible, terrible crimes against young children, sexually molested them, tortured them, killed horrible things. Well, did the things that we do, and you know, and we gave him a fair trial and decided he must die and executed him. But you can't kill anybody. You can kill a body, but you can't. And so what may we have unleashed on some children twenty or thirty years from now, or some children thirty years down the road who aren't even born yet, who may be brutalized by someone who we dispatched into the next life and will come back having learned nothing in the exact same state that he was. She, the mother, says thou shalt not kill. It is reason they had this, you had this.

terrible situation. Incarcerated an opportunity to work for as long as it might take in order to break, in order to purge the mind. But instead, we killed the body, dispatched the spirit into the spirit world to seek another body. To, you know, ever seen that? Here, Johnny. You know, he's back again, huh? And so what's the effect if two little children thirty years from now were brutalized and everybody's taking out the oh my god. What would prompt somebody to do something like this? Who would ever know that it traces its way back to a time when our laws had us kill someone and send him reeling back into the universe seeking another body, coming back to do the same thing all over again. So then what is the effect? Is the effect that this is a bad person? Yes. Is the effect that the children are killed? Yes. Could the cause be tracing itself back into a previous existence? Yes. No other things. Nobody can prove anything, but I'm throwing it out, say, Let's think about it. Life is a lot deeper than we

think life is a lot more complex than we think. We have many more responsibilities than we understand. And so when the Bible says thou shalt not kill, and you kill, you never know what you're unleashing on people down the road. You have not killed the spirit which is depraved; you have only sent it to seek another body, and there it goes again, over and over again. They always come back; they're all over the place, whether they be serial killers, rapists, or what. Where do they come from? Well, it's just one part of it. But see, the word renge, the word renge means in addition to cause and effect. It means lotus flower, okay? And the Lotus is a sacred plant, and the reason the sacred plant is because its roots are in the mud. Its roots are in the mud, but it reaches up through the water, up into the air, and exposes itself constantly to the Sun, in spite of the fact that its roots are in the mud. The carnal mind, in spite of the fact that our roots are in the mud of the carnal.

mind we reach ourselves above up into the air of the third consciousness and then expose ourselves to the Sun, which is the higher realms of consciousness inside of ourselves. You can't get this from reading about it. You can't get it from studying or going to school. You have to understand that there is something magnificent within you. The second symbol of the Lotus that is so beautiful is that it puts its flower and its seed pot at the same time, which is very important in Shakyamuni Buddha's teaching, the simultaneous cause-and-effect. Something can happen, what we think is instantly. In other words, if the lights are out and I run over to the switch, I flip the switch. The cause is that I flip the switch. The effect is that the lights come on. Simultaneous. Can we see that? See, a lot of times, if we don't, if we can't see the scientific principle, we don't really understand what makes this thing happen. What we've done is we know it's an act of God or it's luck or it's magic or

natural disasters were always in the past considered the wrath of God. Christians still understand it that way. If they had an earthquake, they all got on television because this is going to fulfill their Bible. Oh, there's an earthquake. God's getting ready for the end time. They're always figuring things like that, always that there was a spell or a curse, something was in the hands of God. We still believe, but we thank God for our blessings, don't you? What do you do? You come here, sit at Thanksgiving time, you got a big fat turkey, and all the tables filled up, and you got all the kids and everything, and mother comes in wiping her hands in an apron, and then let's say the blessing. It's you grab your hold hands around the table, and we thank God that he filled your bellies, and let's so many in the world starve to death. It's irrelevant. We got ours. You, that's what cats. We thank God we got ours. To hell with them. That's their tough luck. Say the things that science

explains that we always thought, you know, in the past, so these are evil things, or God has sent a curse, and it's really part of a particular effect or a cause that are just em, you know. When I was a little kid, they used to tell me that God was bowling, and that's what the Thunder was. I didn't know. I really thought, Why does he have to borrow right over my house? They told me this in order to make me not be afraid because it was other things of what God was doing that when, you know, war and the heaven and all. No science teaches that that's simply a discharge of electricity into the atmosphere ins, but you can't deal with the reality of it. Religion still can't deal with the reality of life, so we make up all of these things. They can't, you see, one of the hardest things when you talk about Shakyamuni Buddha and renge, the law of cause and effect, is that you figure in as part of the problem, and you know.

Religion doesn't like that. They don't want any of this to be not me, so they invent the devil. Devil did it, you know. The devil is put this on. See the word devil. If you ever see that, I'm nothing. Never looked at it. But if you look at the word devil and you take a DA, that's all. If you look at the word God, I mean, II had a no to it. So what do you have? It's, you know, it's, they all play on words of good against evil, God and the devil, and so. But in order to absolve ourselves from any responsibility, we invent these things in order to push the responsibility away from one thing, freak accidents. You've hard to freak out sometime. Person was hit by lightning on a golf course. It would fit, you know why you, you go. Did you ever think you, did you ever go into it, to into a funeral parlor? My father was an interior decorator, and I committed suicide when I was a kid, 14 years old. I remember

going into the funeral parlor and standing there. I was always somewhat of a revolutionary type character, you know. I just listened. I said, What the heck? And I would hear people come in and say, God must have wanted heaven to be decorated, and he chose Ambrose. You know, that made me decide I did not want to be an interior decorator when I grow up. I don't want to get too good, you know. I mean, in other words, Be a for cockta, whatever you're gonna do, be a jerk, because if you get too good, God's gonna say, 'Hey, I need a milkman like you, you're coming over, forget this, an act of God.' If you have an unhappy relationship, you usually find it very hard to consider the fact that you may have played a part in it. I know I do. I blame everything on Joan. Every sir, you did this year was nothing to do with me. See, the AIDS virus was called right now. They, if you watched my television, see, the AIDS virus is the wrath of God against homosexuals and

that's a peach on television. They used to say that about heterosexuals, about venereal disease. God is punishing people for promiscuous sex, and then all of a sudden, you found you could sidestep God's punishment with a little penicillin. So, what are you gonna say? You know, they're back with a little. You have to make up something else. So, Buddha teaches that there can be no effect without a cause. You know what? What you are now, the reason that you're the way you are now, is because of the way you were. And if you want to see what your life is going to be like in the future, look at what your... You can make changes if you feel changes are necessary, but no matter how long that it will take, renge will happen. There will be the law of cause and effect. It may not happen right away. It may happen later. It may not happen in this lifetime. It may happen in the next lifetime, but something's gonna happen. Let me show you in the Bible where it speaks of this and go to page 64 in

those little Bibles. Exodus chapter 20, and I'll show you a statement in the Bible relative to this. Okay, Exodus chapter 20, and take a look, if you would, at verse 5. You shall not bow down yourself to them, nor serve them, for I, the LORD, am a jealous God. Look at this next line: visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me. That's the law of cause and effect. Say genetic things happen in the genes. You'll find, you'll hear sometime about somebody goes crazy. What's the matter with this person? You don't know that maybe somebody in the family tree, out of sexual intercourse years and years and previous generations, venereal disease was planted, and it grew into the genetic system, lodged itself in the brain, and then suddenly blossomed that decide. And all of a sudden, there's one person who had nothing whatsoever to do with this, might be a hundred years down the road. This one person pays the supreme price because of what was that the law. So in

other words with Buddhists. It doesn't make any difference. You may flip the switch, and the light may go on instantly, or this may happen where somebody violates a particular law, enters into this arrangement, and then somebody else pays the price a hundred years later. But as he said, makes no difference. When the cause is planted, there will be in effect. So why do some people have all the luck? Why do a lot of other people have no luck at all? Why do some people die sudden and tragic deaths when everything in life, you know, seems to be going so good for them? And other people, you know, they just are born rich and just go on. And why's it some people are born with a lot of talent, other people are born, you know, stupid? Why life seems to be so unjust? And as you look in the paper and you read about it, but that very injustice, doesn't that seem to indicate the possibility of chance, some kind? Some people are crippled, some people are healthy, some people are poor, some people are rich, and

nobody can quite figure out why, but this is called renge, and you are attached in life to those who have come before. It doesn't make anything how good you are. Then when the storm comes, it doesn't. It doesn't say, Well, it's a nice neighborhood, and we don't want to blow the roof walk because this is a nice neighborhood. Let's make a left and go down to the ghetto and blow the roof off there. It doesn't. What's it say in the Bible? God is no respecter of persons. What happens to somebody who's good, somebody who's not good? In Galatians chapter 6, verse 7, it says, Whatever a person sows, they shall reap. Take a look at that page 954, Galatians chapter 6. And when you hear a Buddha talking about renge because the law of cause and effect, and you can see it in the Bible, Galatians chapter 6, verse 7, For whatsoever a man sows, that shall he also reap. For he that sows to his flesh

shall of the flesh reap corruption. He thus owes to the spirit. Shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting. So, sowing and reaping, which is renge, goes a lot different than a lot deeper than just the time and space attitude. It has to do with the eternal things, the cosmic things, the universal things. So, this concept really penetrates the depths of our lives and the lives of whom we've been connected to. Who was your father? Who's your mother? Who was your grandfather? Who was your grandmother? What were these people doing? Because things that they were doing have had a definite effect on what you are right now. And don't think that your life does not impact on the children that you have responsibilities to. Definite results of their life is what you're doing now. Everything that you do in your life is going to have an effect not only on you but on your true in our world. Cause comes first than the effect. The other end of the flipping of the lights, which you know we said you have an instantaneous effect, you can

have you can have a cause-and-effect separated by eons and eons. If you plant an acorn, I know trees gonna grow. You may never be around to see it. It may be a hundred years down the road, and some kid will be swinging on that tree. Or you dropped an acorn and died long gone, but the fact that you dropped the acorn into the ground has an effect, and the tree is there. Buddha says, What about human life? You know, we see the cause and effect. We flip the switch, the light comes on. You plant an 8-quart hundreds of years or 100 years later, a tree grows. Well, what about human life? And Buddha says that the cause stretches back to the beginning of your solar system. The cause, the way you are, the way people are, stretches itself back to the origin of the solar system. Everything that has happened, everything intermittent that has happened, has been part of the course. And the Bible hints at this when it says in Romans 8:28, All

things work together for good. All things work together for good for them that loved the Lord. There is nothing that goes on that does not impact. There is a cause, there is an effect in all things. But what are all these things? There are two, and now let's take a look at this. Buddha says there are two types of causes. You've got an external cause, and what's that? You flip the switch, and you get the light. That's obvious. That's a physical cause. It's an external cause. That's something you deal with, okay? But then there's the second kind, and Buddha calls it the inherent cause. And this work, it's interesting. The inherent cause is a latent effect. It exists within your eath consciousness. Carl Jung called it the super consciousness support. Everything is stored deep within your mind. The things that you have been, have been in placed into your consciousness as a little child that you've long ago forgotten about, are there waiting for some stimulus to all of a sudden bring them forth. Call Youm, who is a great

psychoanalyst and a contemporary of Sigmund Freud said that even the mayor screaming had a child can set something in motion, and all it needs then is for the right stimulus to come along, and that child will explode at a later time. The fact of an unwanted child in a home child isn't one of the child has knocked around from here to there, and Carl Jung said then that's fine, and then the child forgets about if the child's adopted into a good family. The child becomes very nice, the child likes to dress, and becomes very successful, but there's something lying deep in that subconscious that has never forgotten, and the stimulus comes along, and you've got a rapist or a serial killer, and that's the effect of the causes that are placed within you, the inherent cause. So how do they work together? There's a tendency in this storehouse, in this subconsciousness, placed there from a previous experience or a previous life situation, something in your environment.

suddenly prompts this tendency. It surfaces from the deep past, and then it manifests into a physical reality. Sometimes you leave your cities. I don't know why I feel this way. I don't know why I'm acting this way. Or you say about somebody else, Why I and they? Why is she doing there? So why is he doing? Why is he acting? You don't have any idea. You have no idea that deep in that 8th consciousness, deep into the super consciousness, laying there is something that you've forgotten, they'd forgotten. But the subconscious never forgets, and there's now something that has stimulated it back into life, and you've got a problem. And what it means is that the external cause does not necessarily make that which is the external effect amount of thoughts. I'll show you what I mean by that. The effect of the external cause is not always immediate, obvious. Let me take a look. I've done this before to explain something. When this is what I'm trying to say, let's

take a cup of water. The cup of water has sediment at the bottom of the cup. Okay, you stir the contents, and the water in the cup becomes dirty. See, the sediment in the bottom of the cup is the inherent cause. You would think that because you've stirred the cup, that's the external cause, but actually, the inherent cause was the sediment in the bottom of the cup. Because if there was no sediment in the bottom of the cup, you could have stirred and stirred and stirred, and the water wouldn't have become dirty. You have people to people are fighting with one another, you know, and one little say together, Oh yeah, you're never happy unless you're stirring something up. So right away, the blame is on whoever it is that's stirred it up, and you're all freaking out because they can stir up a scrap. But the point that you list was there is something deep within you. There is something deep within you, and if it wasn't there, they could have stirred all day long, and nothing would have happened. It was not

the fact that they stirred anything up. The fact was that there was something lying deep in your subconscious, waiting, waiting, waiting for something to stimulate it. And as soon as it did, it exploded. And the fault is all hers. You're the one that starts up every day. I'm going home because of what? Not because anybody started, but because there is something deep within you waiting for it to be said. Because if there was no inherent cause, if there was no sediment in there, he's gonna stir this up all day long, nothing would have happened. You would have been able to deal with it. Hey, you know you're acting like a jerk. What's the matter with you? But instead, you freaked, you freaked. Face got red, you started screaming. It's not the other person stirring, it is that which is within you. Okay? It is that which is within you. And that's what shocked you. Muni Buddha says things happen not because somebody does something, but because within you is something waiting to be done. People fail to notice the sediment. I know I've said

iment you can you can trip my switch real quick because there's something in there. I come from a dysfunctional family. I mean, it was a first-class example of a dysfunctional family, so I've got lots of stuff in my cup at the bottom, and it doesn't take a whole lot for it to get stirred up. My meditation has worked; at least I realize it, at least thank God - a shocking Muni Buddha. I realize it, and then I realized that I have within myself things that have to be cleaned, and my meditation works, and then I've come a long way, a long, long way. But still, there was sediment left in the bottom of that cup. So what happens to a lot of people is, Oh, these are good people. They're not aware that the cause of their unhappiness lies dormant within themselves. Let me tell you something: when you go into one of your trips, you know, like I do sometimes, you freak out, you get depressed, all of us, you know, you can, you know, ever see, as I said.

Sometimes you're sitting in the spring or the summer, and you see the sky in the West start to get dark, and it gets darker, and then you hear the thunder boom boom boom. That's coming. The storm is coming. Nobody's got to be able to stop it, and the storm comes, and lightning comes, and thunder, and rain, and then it blows its way up, and it's the same thing in here as it is outside. So it is in it. You can tell when you're getting ready to go into a mood. You can tell when you're gonna get ready to be snotty because it's the time. The storm is coming, and as the storm gets closer, you are getting more snotty, and you don't want that storm to go away. You wanna be that way, and you're just waiting for him or her to get home to share the storm. And the thing is, there's nobody that can talk you out of it. There's no way they can pray out of it. There's nothing can be done. What must

the storm. Do the storm must dump itself and then blow out to scenter. And when the storm blows out to sea, you realize your benefit octa for the last two days. And you walk out into the kitchen. You say, I'm sorry, let's make up. And then by the time you're sorry and you're making up, the one that you're living with is in the middle of a storm. And you know 'cause it's true. And you know what some, this is the kind of stuff that Shakyamuni Buddha explained a thousand years before Jesus was born. And the horror of this is that Christianity has warned you that he was evil. Stay away from Buddha, that's cult stuff. The only cult stuff is them. What he told you was how the human mind works and how you can deal with it and how you could understand yourself and understand others. He didn't say there was anything you could do about this, but he says you can understand that, realize how it works. And you know, you can, they can deal with it. Somebody and

it's innocently activate something within you, and it's the fact that it is within you, and that's what causes it, that inherent cause lie silently within you. It depends on where you are. Let's go to an airport, two planes late. Here's the lady at the ticket counter, and it depends on the person at first. What do you mean the plane is late? I have to. I paid good money for the plane to be on time. Do you know what I'm telling you? And you'll stay in there. Tell me the point. I want your man. Who's your manager? Get your manager over here right now. The plane is late, huh? What? We'll see about this. And I'd write to my. I'm a very good friend of Senator Braley, and I'm gonna tell him because I am fed up. Every time it always sings when I get here. The plane is late, and I think there's something going on here inherent in that person. See, here comes a second person up. The plane is late. The second precious. This plane is late, but

how am I gonna get home? I think my mother's gonna be waiting for me at the airport. I know, but I'm gonna do it on time. Nobody's gonna be there. The dog, do you think? Is there anything north the plane? Is it like because there's something wrong with it? And what did you have? You heard anything? And I mean, is it okay? I mean, it's me again. I'm looking. Somebody call me if I said that's the second say one guy is madder than hell. The other guy's a nervous wreck. The third guy comes up. The plane is late. I'll be in the bar. But why are they so different? Why are those three people so different? Because of inherent causes that have been put in them at the time they were in China or in previous life. They're all different. And so when something stimulates like the plane is like something stood, there's going to be a different effect from each of them. The same cause is going to produce a different effect in each person because of what's in here.

and that's what shock immunity. Buddha tried to explain to us how we are all products of the past, and our past is uniquely different one to the other. And so, that when the stimulation comes, our reaction is going to be quite different. I generally, basically, for the most part, the second guy in there, you know, planes like that must mean it's, you know, they're working on it somewhere, you know, somebody left a screwdriver in the propeller as, Oh yes, also the person's perception of that event. So, there's two things running simultaneously together. Yeah, well, that's all true, but you know, the point where we really, that perception is a very good point too, but the poor Buddha was focusing himself on is saying it doesn't make any difference. That person is not going to be able to perceive the event any differently than they do because of the inherent cause. There's no way they can perceive in any different way. They're always gonna look at it that way. It's always got to be a disaster. It's always

you know sometimes if somebody doesn't come home with the time they're supposed to come home your mind kicks in a little newsreel and you see you know the dead body lying on a side of street a rapist or whatever it is other state police you know they must have had an accident over there and you your mind instantly kicks in this particular thing well somebody else just doesn't have a problem with it you know and it depends on the inherent cause you are going to act the way you do because of the inherent point as you get as you get further on towards the end of the Buddhist studies what's interesting about this is this can be changed these can be changed but karmic attitudes and all of these things which have been placed into us can be changed and that's the beautiful part and this is what Buddha tried to share with everybody so Christianity came along and blamed it on a devil and all this kind of stuff and you rotten no-good sin term and all of this stuff and believe a sense a very natural thing.

that exists within the subconscious of every human being, and every human being will react differently to a given set of circumstances. But these things can be changed by profound meditation and understanding that inner okay until we learn. And this is what Buddha said. I'm gonna give you a quote of Shakyamuni Buddha. Until we learn that we become angry or upset not because of any external cause but because of something that already exists within our own lives. Until we know that we can never begin to change that inherent tendency because we don't know that it exists. So we suffer in direct proportion. Listen to this. You might, you should write this maybe if you do if you want to. You don't have to. We suffer in direct proportion to our own inherent tendency to do so. We suffer in direct proportion to our own inherent tendency to do so. And Shakyamuni Buddha said about Hell. He says hell is the concentration that we make on our own perceived agony. That's how what a Jesus

say and Luke 11:52 you take away the key because you don't enter within yourself. You don't know who you are. You've been told by religions, you've been told by churches, you've been told by the government, you've been told by school, even told by everybody what you are, what you should do. You have no idea who you are, what goes on inside of you, what has been deposited inside of you. See, we're bored. It would shock immunity. Buddha tried to explain is that life is like a chain link. One attaches to the other very, and as soon as you take an action of a result or an external or an inherent, something happens. That effect is so whatever you do, it becomes lodged in your life. And then I think the interesting thing is, let's say for instance, who can I use? I did. Would anybody want to come up and I can demonstrate? Okay, okay, come on, come on, come on. Okay, that's great. Do you stand right here now? And what's your name? Hoodie. Hoodie.

you for you did you picture Alan today. Okay, let's say for instance, Wow says something and hoodie gets angry. What you've done that you said something to make other people mad, haven't you? You've had people say things to you that got you upset, so it can be very that what we will have to understand then what is the external cause. Al's comment is the external cause. Hoodie's tendency to flare up is the inherent cause. See, many times a person would say, I mean, she's freaking out, she is ticked off. Tony is angry because of the way she took what he said, not that necessarily what he said, what's so bad, you know, but the way it hit her. And then after, even maybe later, Tony gets home, she's what's your husband's name, right? Talks - Fred. Fred says, you know - yeah, it's really deep, he didn't really mean it. Well, make it worse, yeah, that's right, we just had a confession, there is an inherent pause inside a did you hear. So, no matter what anybody said until she overcomes this by

herself, and then she might think about it in some way, trying some, and you know, some socially together. But let's go on with this a bit. What is the manifest effect? Hoodie gets angry, her pulse quickens, and she's listening to this stuff. All of a sudden, she can't take it anymore, and she does. No one gets off, but she winds up thanks at first and lets him have it. Yes, your work, Dad. You'd need a bat or something. But you know, the point is Buddha is trying to make is the effect of that smack is now fixed, not only in Al's life, it is fixed permanently in Tony's life. But I could do as much with the tongue. So right, yeah. But basically, what he is saying here is that this is an external type of an effect that comes from the cause. Because we think it was the words that he said, but Buddha said it wasn't the words. It was the inherent cause within you that has this tendency to defend yourself and to

get very upset, and then it got so that you take a swing at him. Now you have not only caused an effect in his life, but you've caused an effect on the earth. One thing, but also it's also possibly raised an inherent cause in me. Now it certainly could, it certainly could, and a new cause could have been placed in your life, and you're gonna be a lot wiser when you talk to these ladies. Okay, the point being, this is what food is trying to tell you. When somebody approaches you and you have this inherent cause which has not been dealt with in this life, you'll have to deal with it in the next life if you don't deal with it. This is the beautiful part. You have an opportunity to deal in this life with these things through meditation, and this is what I was speaking of in the in when you execute people. I'm not saying what goes on in the other dimensions, but I'm saying is we have a responsibility, an opportunity, no matter how vile a person is. Lock them

away forever, but to work on it because we don't understand what we are dispatching into the spirit world to enter it over. But we don't understand what we're causing in the universe. We don't understand it. People like Buddha and Krishna and Jesus tried to explain this to us. We have returned on what we don't. You cannot kill a human being; you can only kill a body. You cannot kill that person, just dispatching. But here now, hoodie has an opportunity to learn of an inherent cause. Well, we all have different inherent causes that will cause us to react differently to the stimulus that are brought upon us with this little activity, say. But this is what Buddha tries to tell us, and I think it's a good line. You have done unto others, you know the swing, but you have actually done unto yourself, saying. And this is the problem when we need your reaction to other people. We are at the same time dumping within ourselves and causing problems within ourselves, and these problems will find their way to that.

subconscious area and rest there, and then someday down the road, whether it be in this lifetime, next month, next year, ten years, will have a reaction, it will have an effect. I think was some scientist said you can't even wave your, you're on that, you don't sound at rippling effect into the universe because you move the winds and everything must go one after the other. Somewhere along your lifetime, everything that has happened will manifest into an effect. Could be moments later, could be years later, but our experiences are all stored in that 8th consciousness, waiting, waiting for something, waiting for some sediment to explode by a stimulus. You know, there was you, if you take a, you might have a little tape or a CD or whatever it is, it's just a piece of little plastic or junk, it's irrelevant, makes no, it doesn't do anything, so good friends, they can't decorate anything. But if you put it into the machine, whether it's the popular stimulus, what happened, beautiful music comes out of this thing, huh, beautiful music, the cause of this

was the manufacturing of the CD and the effect then when it's inappropriate stimulus is the beautiful music waiting for something if somebody hits you or somebody does something to you you strike back and this is what Buddha says and we'll wrap it up by I think it's interesting the first blow his is the stimulus leading to the second blow which is yours but it is not the ultimate cause you will say hey I hit him but he hit me first that's the reason I hit him Buddha says no you didn't in fact you hit him because you are you the real cause was inside of you ready to be activated by the external course and what do you feel it's justified or whether you don't feel it's justified deep in your life there was a tendency or an inherent cause which draws such behavior and do you know why why were you set upon in the first place did you ever did you ever go and say Stan why do they always find me you know no matter where I go I always get these

scruples like around me there's a reason a shocking Muni Porter said there is vibrating within you this inherent thing that draws people to you like a magnet and that can be overcome too it draws trouble to you like a magnet there might be a vibration of fear which pulses out where the OHC experienced but ever you were kidding you're scared to death of a dog the dog knew and then chase you for three blocks could smell it could feel like you were afraid that dog was gonna catch you and you have that same pulsation of fear outward so just as you hit back because you're you just as you hit back because you are you you were hit in the first place because you are you as a magnet we draw these things and it doesn't make any difference whether they're rapists or whatever they are Sakyamuni Buddha is saying rid of this and true within and wipe it away and don't be a magnet for the external causes which come upon you whether they be from other people.

whether they be from disease, whatever it may be, get rid of it. And through meditation into that area of divine nothingness, which Buddha called Nirvana, you separate yourself. You're no longer on a magnet; you no longer draw this trouble to you. You no longer are stimulated to react to these types of things. It sounds outrageous because it would seem to justify suffering and violence, that somehow the victim is to be historically blamed. But remember, and this is what Buddha said, when you feel, Oh, the poor victim, remember that the aggressor is also reacting to an inherent cause, something that was placed deep inside of that person. Oh yeah, you can be around some people; they generate everything. They're sarcastic, you know, they've always got sarcasm. They're always down; everything is no good, no matter what you've done is no good. Something is coming, flowing from them because of that which would leave in there like that is because of either in this life or a previous experience. It could be as a little child; they have had placed

inside of them that negativity that whenever you come and when you try to tell them of any kind of accomplishment they'll always put it down because that's their inherent cause and you may even do it to somebody else see because you feel that you've been deprived you you haven't really had the benefits that other people have and so the vibrations that come through the instance thing is either somebody wants to tell you something the first thing you want to do is while they're telling you something you're thinking of what you're gonna tell them because you're gonna tell them something that you did better than they did you're not gonna listen anyhow and all of that comes because of the inherit causes that have been placed into us and Buddha says he doesn't explain these things to justify anything he explains them just to show you why it's no respecter of persons these things happen February's gonna happen rains and thunderstorms are gonna happen earthquakes are gonna happen winds are gonna happen it doesn't make any

difference. You can't say they're good or bad. It has nothing. They happen when you understand how they happen and that they do happen. You can protect yourself when we know all about the things that go wrong on the outside. We have no idea whatsoever the things that go wrong on the inside, and that's what Shakyamuni Buddha tried to teach this world. And we have followed religious people who have said stay away from that stuff. And the reason that they said stay away from that stuff, it's because Shakyamuni Buddha taught you, you are responsible. You are responsible for your salvation. You are responsible for the things that are happening in what will happen in the future. There is no invisible devil to put the finger at the devil. If you would, is inside of us, and we are the responsibility. And the beautiful part is it can be resolved. Everything can be resolved through the profound study and profound entering in of meditation and lifting ourselves and into dealing with all of these horrible things that we've

experienced. I thought one of the most interesting teachings that I saw Buddha was when he was teaching of the ten world, and one of the ten worlds was the animal world. You know what he said? Stay out of the animal consciousness, stay in the meditative state, because in the animal consciousness, you become as an animal. And he says the problem with an animal is its predictable. You go hunting, you'll know exactly what the animal's gonna do, and so you can set your trap because you'll know inherently it will follow its animal instinct. You know when it comes out to feed, you'll know where to set the trap, and you'll have know how to catch it. And Buddha says, remember when you dwell in the animal nature, others will know exactly what you're going to do. They'll know what to say to turn you on, don't know what to say to turn you up, and they'll set their trap, and you'll walk into it every time because you're predictable. But I'll tell you one thing, when you enter into the realm of

meditation. You become the most unpredictable person in the universe, and they'll never know where you're coming from. You know what they do? They stay away from you. They take their traps, and they go looking for somebody else that's predictable. And always remember that the guy that's setting the trap is not going to tell you to sit under the teaching of the one who's telling you where the traps are. Thank you very much.

287  Buddha When Decent People Get Hurt

William Donahue

Understanding the Law of Cause and Effect

Shakyamuni Buddha's teaching on the law of cause and effect (renge) explains why bad things happen to good people.

The concept of karma suggests that we must live out our experiences and learn life lessons across multiple lives.

The speaker emphasizes the importance of helping others break free from their struggles, as our actions can have a lasting impact on future generations.

The Lotus Flower and the Law of Cause and Effect

The Lotus flower symbolizes the simultaneous cause-and-effect, a key teaching in Shakyamuni Buddha's philosophy.

Many people attribute life's events to luck or divine intervention, but the law of cause and effect is a fundamental principle.

Our current circumstances are a result of our past actions, and changes can be made to influence our future, but the law of cause and effect will ultimately prevail.

The Bible's Exodus 20:5 highlights the concept of generational iniquity, suggesting that the actions of previous generations can impact their descendants.

This law of cause and effect is evident in various life situations, leading to perceived injustices and disparities in luck, talent, and wealth.

Buddha's teachings on renge and the concept of inherent causes emphasize the deep connection between our actions and their long-term effects, both in our lives and the lives of those we are connected to.

The Impact of Subconscious Causes on Behavior

The subconscious mind holds onto past experiences and traumas, which can resurface and manifest in harmful behaviors later in life.

External stimuli may trigger these buried tendencies, leading to unexpected reactions and conflicts.

The inherent causes of our behaviors often lie deep within us, and without addressing them, we may struggle to understand our actions and emotions.

The Storm Within: Understanding Human Emotions

Emotions can be likened to a storm, with signs of an impending mood change similar to darkening skies and thunder.

Each person's reaction to the same situation, like a delayed flight, varies due to their unique past experiences and inherent causes.

The Buddha's teachings emphasize that understanding these inherent causes can help us comprehend ourselves and others, but our reactions to stimuli will remain influenced by our past.

The Impact of Inherent Tendencies on Our Reactions

Our minds often jump to worst-case scenarios when someone is late, highlighting our inherent tendencies to react differently to circumstances.

These karmic attitudes can be changed through profound meditation and self-understanding, as taught by Buddha.

Our suffering is directly proportional to our inherent tendency to react, and true change begins when we acknowledge and understand these internal causes.

The Impact of Our Actions and Inherent Causes

Our actions have a ripple effect, not only on others but also on ourselves and the universe.

Inherent causes within us can lead to reactive behavior, and these unresolved issues may resurface in future lifetimes.

Meditation and self-reflection provide an opportunity to address and overcome these inherent causes, ultimately breaking the cycle of negative reactions and attracting trouble.

The Power of Meditation and Responsibility

Meditation can help individuals detach from negative influences and break the cycle of suffering and aggression.

Buddha's teachings emphasize that both victims and aggressors are shaped by inherent causes, and that true responsibility for one's life lies within.

By entering a meditative state, individuals can become unpredictable, avoiding the traps set by others and ultimately finding their own path to resolution and salvation.