cause and effect | Tibetan Buddhist Altar

The Law of Karma: Explanation by Khenchen Tsewang Gyatso

August 22, 2011 by anisonam

The following is an excerpt from a teaching by Khenchen Tsewang Gyatso given at Kunzang Palyul Choling on Ngondro:

The law of cause and effect, or karma, has been explained a number of times by Jetsunma and myself. Whatever exists in this world is just the creation of oneself. There is logical proof and proper reasoning for this, and one can experience it for oneself. There are many examples that prove everything is the result of one’s own karma combined with one’s present life conditions. If you never do any harm to any sentient beings, you will not suffer. It is definite. In this lifetime, if you never say anything bad to someone, then this person is not going to do anything bad to you because you have not created any problem. When you create problems for another, then the other person also feels unhappy and gets angry, and then he creates problems for you. It plays back and forth and creates many troubles. That is how the law of karma works.

The law of karma is very, very subtle and very, very strict, no corruption. Whether one is very rich or a great philosopher or a very great doctor or a very great scientist or a very great modern technologist, whoever, there is no corruption of the karma. Whatever you have done, you will have to bear it. What you have not done, there is no way that you can experience it. Even if you wished to experience it, there is no way to do it. It is very, very subtle and very strict, and it has very good justice. There is no way that it can forget anything, that it can lose anything. Everything is fully imprinted, like the hard disk on your computers. Everything is there. Our mind and our actions, our body, speech and mind are like the floppy disk, and they are constantly putting things on the hard disk, where it stays. When you need something, you switch disks, and it comes out. When conditions happen, then it is ripening back to you because you have already inserted something in the hard disk of karma. You have put it in there, so never can that get lost or corrupted or erased. Fires cannot burn it. Waters cannot wash it. Winds cannot carry it away, unlike computers, which fires can burn. Your whole hard disk with 10 years of programs, when it is burned, it is gone like that. But none of the five elements can harm the karma computer. No one can harm it. When conditions happen, it will definitely ripen back to you and you alone. There will be no mistake. Mr. A’s karma will not ripen to Mr. B, and Mr. B’s karma will not ripen to Mr. A. Those sorts of things are not going to happen in that way. It is very subtle, very strict, very just. No corruption. It cannot get lost, cannot be burned. Everything is so organized, much, much better organization than your schedules. When there are proper conditions, then that is going to ripen to you. That is the actual life process. That is experienced by all sentient beings. That is the law of karma.

Cause and Effect: Examining Circumstances

August 5, 2011 by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

The following is an excerpt from a teaching by Khenchen Tsewang Gyatso on Ngondro, given at Kunzang Palyul Choling:

There is not one single sentient being who wishes to suffer. That is very obvious. Even scary animals, ghosts, and evil spirits don’t really mean to harm anybody. They are in search of some kind of happiness. They are looking for some kind of peace. An evil spirit or consciousness wanders here and there and creates some kind of problem for someone. Then that person becomes possessed by the evil spirit and there are lots of disturbances, all due to the search for happiness, but without knowing what the actual cause of happiness is. How can one really have actual happiness? How can one really have a peaceful life? How can one have a happier life? One has to understand the actual cause. Due to ignorance, all sentient beings do not know that. Each and every sentient being wishes for happiness, but not knowing the cause of happiness, all kinds of karma, actions, thoughts, and afflicted mind, arise and worldly things are done which result in problems and suffering.

I think that Americans really don’t like to hear about suffering in the teachings. You like to hear only about having a happy and prosperous life, about enjoyment. You are always trying to find some kind of modern technology, some different way of doing things, because you are really trying to find happiness. Maybe if I climb a mountain, I can enjoy life more. Or no, maybe I’ll go bungee jumping! That may be more enjoyable and will bring some happiness. In that way, everybody is trying each and every thing just to experience happiness, just to experience some kind of peaceful mind. There are so many religions, so many masters, so many yogis who have appeared. When a Hindu teacher comes, then everybody goes there and listens to the yogi teaching about prana, some kind of breathing, some kind of meditation, because they think, “If I go to this teacher, maybe I can get some kind of solution so that I can be happier. Maybe I can have some kind of path. Maybe I can really get something so that I can maintain a happier life.”

So everyone does whatever we do 24 hours a day. And whatever we are doing, whatever we talk to people about, it’s all in search of peace and happiness. Not knowing the actual cause of happiness, one thinks something else may help, so one creates all kinds of karma, causing problems which ripen for oneself. It is like a reflection, or an echo when you shout in a cave. The same ego shouts back to you. When you look in the mirror and make a face, the image makes the same face back at you. In the same way, the actions one has done to other sentient beings, ripen back. This is the cause of samsara, or cyclic existence. Whatever peace or happiness is attained is very temporary and limited. While worldly peace and happiness is temporary and of short duration, at the same time, one experiences lots and lots of difficulties, lots and lots of problems. One experiences suffering and struggles very hard before one can have a little bit of peace and happiness.

So experience one’s own life and others’ lives. Sit aside and watch the universe, watch sentient beings. Watch how all these sentient beings fare. Everything is the result of one’s own karma or whatever action one has done. In this way, when one thinks about the suffering of sentient beings, then one could think, “How can I really apply some kind of method or practice so that I can become fully perfected, so that I may not have any more suffering—no miserable life, no birth, no death, no sickness, no old age? How can I get rid of all this?” There is a teaching which explains how one can really enter into a very strong practice, a practice which would produce results very fast, a practice which may have a very special skill, a special technique, so that one can have realization in this lifetime. If one could really generate Bodhicitta or Awakening Mind, then one would feel like he really needs to get enlightened.

Advice on Cause and Effect

January 9, 2012June 4, 2011 by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

The following is from a series of tweets by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo in response to a question from a student:

There are mixing karmas there. Gossip is straightforward, considered a deep non-virtue resulting in loss of respect, being victimized in the future, having confused or unintelligible speech in future, if about another Dharma practitioner it is a breakage of vows and samaya. Downfall, surely.

If the man or woman allows him/herself to be supported financially and is well and not addled (is competent) they will be weak and impoverished in the future, and that person will have the burden of paying for others as well. Hardship. In Dharma there is no non-virtue in the wife taking the conventional man’s role. But not contributing anything of value to society is a non-virtue. Not giving to charity and such is selfish, and both combine to insure future extreme poverty. Dependency on society’s institutions to survive.

Being pompous is a sign of feeling small and weak and needing to destroy or put down others to make oneself powerful. It is a truly weak person. Rebirth as jealous god realm, or being pathetic with no hope or help is the result. No kindness will come, little love or respect.

Karma is exacting and what I describe as karmic results will be modified by particular arising causes. Such as lack of ethics, excuses to not change, or lack of will to be a better person. Karma will be lighter if person puts in effort but makes little progress. That too is a result from previous causes. Actually cause and result arise interdependently so the result is already born, separated only by the illusion of time.

Whew! Big question. I feel that last bit is a teaching. For all. Now my thumbs are aching so I’m outta here! Love to all!

OM AH HUNG BENZAR GURU PEDMA SIDDHI HUNG

OM MANI PEDME HUNG

OM TARE TUTTARE TURE SO HA

Stop the Madness

February 8, 2011 by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

An excerpt from a teaching called Perception and Karma by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

In order to pacify the karma of our mind, we need to employ the methods of Dharma. These methods consist of generating oneself in a pure form, free of attachment and desire, meditating on the nature of emptiness, contemplating the nature of emptiness, engaging in compassionate and pure activity in order to pacify the karma of our minds. We engage in all of these things. These are the means by which eventually, over a period of time, the karma of our mind will change. It will change. How quickly it changes is up to you. No one can predict that. It really depends on you. It depends on how diligently and deeply you practice, how clear you are about what you want, how deep you can allow your understanding to go, and how much you put into it. There is no law or force outside of you that pushes you to have progress at a certain level or in a certain way. It is purely up to you.

The experience that we have, however, and the habitual tendencies we have are so strong, that even hearing this is a little bit like riding a Ferris wheel. When you ride to the top of a Ferris wheel you can look down at the whole world. You can see the horizon, you can see the lights, you can see the buildings and you can see people, and you go, “Oh, it looks like that, does it?” Then the Ferris wheel comes down and you get off and you’re on that ground level. You are in it, walking the streets. You forget that there is a horizon. You forget that there are millions and millions of sentient beings per square block. You don’t have any view so we continue with that habitual compulsive tendency to act and react in the ways that we do.

These teachings sound disturbing and they should be disturbing for people that have no access to dharma. Within that circular, compulsive, experiential procedure there is no end to it. One cannot do something that will end the phenomena because the more you do the more you interact between self and other. The more you interact between self and other, the more that you try to accomplish, the more effortful your efforts are, the more engaged you are in cause and effect relationship. The more cause and effect relationships you engage in, the more karma continues, the more exaggeration continues. The process does nothing but give birth to itself. There’s no end to it.

For those who have the opportunity to practice the path that is brought about, not through ordinary means of cause and effect, not through using ordinary techniques of manipulating phenomena and increasing exaggeration, but rather by using techniques that are birthed from primordial wisdom and that bring about the pacification and the end of cause and effect relationships, you should thank Buddha because there is an end to suffering. Having seen the impenetrability of this tight constant delusion, having seen how it simply gives birth to itself and does more and more and more, having understood this, you should look at the path that comes from the primordial wisdom state and that offers the necessary technology to bring about the end of cause and effect relationships, and feel tremendously relieved. It is like you have been sifting through garbage for many lifetimes, and suddenly you have come upon a precious jewel. Suddenly you have found the wish-fulfilling jewel. With that you should develop some sense of determination.

That determination can be a very illusory thing. I’m talking about really understanding for yourself, not just hearing my words, but taking the time to contemplate and understand how useless it is to combat this thing you’re in with the ways that you do. To really contemplate on how useless your actions are to end something that can’t be ended. To really contemplate in such a way that you look at the way you’re manipulating phenomena and see that it’s nothing. You might as well do nothing. In fact, you’re getting yourself in deeper and deeper.

Contemplate that in such a way that you become armed with a foundational view or foundational understanding that says to you that this stuff is stupid. It’s not only stupid, it’s deadly, it’s horrible and there’s no way out of it. To be involved in cyclic existence is horrible beyond belief. Be determined to examine the nature of your mind. Watch yourself as you engage in it, and from that point, use these techniques to begin to pacify the causes of the experience that you’re having, which is karma.

That determination is the kind of determination that doesn’t make you practice a little bit more for a few days and then waste away again. It’s the kind of determination, for instance, as a monk or a nun that would make you say, “Look at these robes, I will never abandon them. How precious that I have found the supreme vehicle.” Even if men or women came dancing naked through the room and they were all gorgeous, it wouldn’t affect you at all. You wouldn’t need the world to hide itself so that you could maintain your vows. You would have that kind of renunciation. You would understand and even if the most delightful sensual experiences were to present themselves to you, they would be nothing to you. What is it? It’s nothing. It’s garbage. It begets more of the same. You can’t have anything without losing it.

For those of us who are renunciates in different ways, you should have the same experience. You should look at whatever experience you have in your life and know that it can’t dupe you anymore. It’s not that you won’t achieve, it’s not that you won’t have money; it’s not that you won’t have the experiences that people have but it just won’t dupe you anymore. You can get married, you can have money, it doesn’t matter what you do, but it won’t dupe you anymore because you know what it’s about.

Having this sense of renunciation, you develop a kind of unshakeable discipline. It’s not the discipline that means I should do so many mantras per day. This discipline should go even deeper than that. You should be practicing constantly. You should be constantly developing some space in the middle of that hard core perception of self and other. You should be developing some space in the middle of all your reactions. Develop the spaciousness and the relaxation that is based on understanding what’s what, and then develop it through your practice. Please refer back to the teaching on Monday night. I hope that all of you will try to hear that teaching again. The constant revelation in every piece of phenomena is the heart of emptiness. That is its taste.

Understanding Cause and Effect

January 4, 2011 by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

I’m not an astrologer, but noticed that lately we have seen some strong transiting planetary aspects. Today was Jupiter conjuncts Uranus, two powerful, relatively slow planets lined up together, and also both trine Venus. It actually is a good time to begin new projects, and new ideas blossom, new phases entered and risks taken. The land lays different. Change experienced in such a profound way is disconcerting and awe inspiring as well as frightening.

It is good to remember that Buddha taught all things are impermanent, and that was one constant we all experience; change. We are all born, and then die. In between are endless uncountable changes in our body, speech & mind. In fact that is one of the terrifying faults of samsara, the tide that relentlessly pulls us toward the end of the journey.

The character and results of this trip all depend on our karma and habitual tendency. If we were warriors, the habit of thoughtlessly hurting others remains. If we were thieves, the habit of feeling entitled to steal from others remains. If we were healers, the habit and knack for it may remain. If we were teachers, the habit of educating remains, etc. The character one builds will color our future lives. Our qualities can be carried forward and built on in every life. Likewise if the habits and qualities are meager and poor one can cycle down through lower rebirths for what seems like an eternity. Not one sesame seed’s worth of material wealth can be taken with you.

So we should balance our material needs with the richer, deeper wealth of spirit. We can leave material goods to our children. They should be comfortable. But if you are collecting lots of money and lovely stuff I hope you will give much to the poor. Give some money and stuff away. That is the only way to be sure you will be comfortable and provided for in a future life! Funny how that works, no?

An example: since I began my work I have never lived in a shabby or poor home. Whether mine or not; I am blessed with a safe, comfy, lovely home always. Is it because I am rich? Oh, far from it! But I always spend a good portion of time making nice homes for birdies, finding nice homes for dogs and cats, keeping my land natural for the beautiful wildlife. I am never without food for me and mine because I spend $300 on animal food every month. It is my joy! I wish it was more! Bird houses, bird food, deer food- I love doing this, have since childhood. With this money I could buy a new snazzy car! But my car is nine years old, runs well and looks just fine. I would rather feed wildlife. I love them; they are Buddha, every one. When I serve them I serve the Guru, the Buddha in all. At KPC we feed wild animals, rescue “anipals,” the poor and homeless, we will always be safe, fed and warm if we continue.

We know we will not live forever. We know we want to be happy and content in this and all lives. But most beings simply do not know how to create the causes. We deny cause and effect. We do not think in full equations. We are scrambled in our thinking because we do not understand our future is caused by our own thoughts and actions.

I know rich people who will be poor in the future due to selfishness. I know an amazing woman who is a good Buddhist nun and was a warrior in past lives. Though she has reformed (pun) she has a hole in her heart where her spear entered the heart of another in an ancient, meaningless war.

We do not see that what we do matters, and why and how, even more. We do not see that we dwell in our own mindstream. All phenomena is essentially empty of self nature, but it doesn’t seem like it and we forget the dream like quality of samsara, think it solid and act like we are not spiritual beings at all and there was nothing but this life, this need, this want, this desire and then we are lost. Please, wake up to your nature. Practice, contemplate and act as though everything depends upon your awakening! Because you are the one, and it does in fact depend on you and me.

OM MANI PEDME HUNG!

OM AH MI DEWA HRI!

Spiritual Technology

November 24, 2011September 21, 2010 by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

An excerpt from a teaching by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo from the Vow of Love series

You are at the beginning. You have arrived at the door to liberation. You are knocking on a door that opens to the end of suffering. You have a tremendous capacity here, and in order to utilize that capacity you have to begin to utilize the technology being offered you. That technology is very simple: you have to soften and turn your mind. Whether you are a Buddhist or not, in order to achieve any realization at all – in fact in order to continue in a steadfast way on a path without being pulled away by the craziness of your own mind – you have to develop stability. That stability has to be based on the softening and gentling of your mind. You have to free it as much as possible from discursive thought, and from the conceptualization associated with the belief in self-nature as being real. You have to free it enough to be able to get some perspective.

Through that stability and deepening we can begin to examine these essential thoughts: that all sentient beings want to be happy, that all beings are suffering, that there is a cessation to suffering, and that the cessation to suffering is called enlightenment.

We should examine these thoughts, because Westerners have a very complicated world. Maybe it is hard to understand that all beings wish to be happy here in the West, because here we listen to the news and we hear about people throwing bombs at each other. We hear about robbery, rape and murder. We think, “Wow, that person raped and murdered; he is a horrible person.” We condemn him immediately and forget the other side of that thought, which is that he is trying to be happy. Can you believe that? Is that not an awesome thought? People who are raping and murdering, people throwing bombs in each other’s windows – how can you believe that these people want to be happy? Yet, it is absolutely the case. All sentient beings want to be happy, but they are drunk with the idea that there is no cause and effect. They are drunk with the idea that they can attain happiness by manipulating their environment in some crazy way. It just doesn’t work.

For instance, a freedom fighter might believe if he destroys a thousand people by throwing a bomb into a building, he might attain some liberty for his people, and through that effort he will be happy. That might be his thinking, but he doesn’t realize he has killed a thousand people, and through his action has created the karma in his mindstream of a thousand deaths that can only be the cause of suffering. He really believes he is doing something good. Even the rapist and murderer – maybe he has an uncontrollable urge that is deep and profound. Where does that urge come from? Why don’t you have it? It is because he has the karma of that urge. Maybe it was caused when many lifetimes ago he threw a bomb in somebody’s window and killed a thousand people, and maybe that is why he has that urge in his mindstream now. So what does he do? He continues to rape and murder. At the moment of doing so, he thinks he will end the suffering of his uncontrollable urge through raping and murdering just once more.

That is how horrible it is, but these people really are trying to be happy. Think about that. Think about how they are suffering uncontrollably, revolving again and again in cyclic existence, helplessly, because of the karma that has infected their minds. They are helpless in the midst of the cause and effect that they have created — simply helpless. Even in these horrible cases it is true, all sentient beings are trying to be happy. On the other side of this law, which the Buddha declared, is that not understanding how to create happiness, they constantly create the causes of suffering through non-virtue.

These are things you absolutely must remember. You have to allow them to deepen your mind. They have to become as instinctive and natural to you as breathing. If you understand the infallibility of cause and effect to such a profound extent that it begins to change the compulsion you have to create non-virtue and therefore the causes of unhappiness, then you are a practitioner. You are practicing a technology that will lead you to realization. Whether you consider yourself a Buddhist or not, you are practicing a valid technology, a spiritual technology.

It’s the Law

November 24, 2011September 18, 2010 by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

An excerpt from a teaching by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo from the Vow of Love series

The Buddha says that all sentient beings are suffering and that enlightenment is the cessation of suffering. But we forget that enlightenment is the cessation of suffering. As a Buddhist you say, “Oh, yes, I’ve learned that. I practice the Four Thoughts that Turn the Mind. Enlightenment is the cessation of suffering. I have that memorized.” Oh, really? I must ask you then, why do you still practice the technology of suffering? Because until you achieve supreme realization, you are still practicing the technology of suffering. You realize this, and yet you continually create the circumstances that make you suffer. Here is why we do that: we have forgotten the other infallible law, the law of the certainty of cause and effect.

We have a problem. We are locked in to our own limited perspectives. We are in finite bodies, therefore our minds perceive in a finite way, a way that is natural for a finite reality to be perceived. Within this context, we can see that certain cause and effect relationships are absolutely unchangeable, that they always happen, that they can’t be messed with. We can see that if we pick something up and then drop it, it will fall.

Now, you may say that cause and effect doesn’t always work. There is magic, there is prayer, there are miracles. Okay then, pick something up, anything, and drop it, and stop it from falling. Let me see you do it. Who can do it? If you can do it, then I am going to buy your story and the class is over. Until we can figure out how to do that, it is certain if something is dropped, it will fall. It is also certain if you stick your hand in fire for long enough, your flesh will burn. It is certain if you never eat you will starve. It is certain if you catch a disease you will be sick. These things we understand.

It is also certain that everybody gets old. But the strange thing about us is, while we are still young enough to have a little twinkle in our eye, we will continue to convince ourselves that we will never get old. What we do is unbelievable. I have done it myself, so I know. Each year we buy something new, a little wrinkle remover, a little under-eye cover-up, and each year we still convince ourselves that nothing has changed. Then eventually, none of that stuff works. Then we have two choices: we can either face the facts or consider surgery. Whatever we do, we are putting off the inevitable.

From “The Way to Freedom” by His Holiness the Dalai Lama

August 12, 2010 by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

“As long as prisoners do not know that they are in prison and do not perceive the life of prison is difficult and painful to bear they will not develop any genuine wish to free themselves from prison.

The same is true of samsara: as long as you are unable to perceive. The defects of life within this cycle of existence, you will never develop a genuine wish to gain nirvana, freedom from samsara.

If we remain idle and do not think seriously about karmic law, we might feel that we are not accumulating any negative actions and that we are good practioners.

If we analyze our thoughts and actions closely, however, we will find we are engaging in idle speech, harming others, or engaging in covetousness on a daily basis.

We will find we actually lack the primary factor of deep conviction Necessary to really observe the law of karma.” From: THE WAY to FREEDOM by His Holiness Dalai Lama of #Tibet @Dalailama #Buddhism

Something told me to open my book to pg108. And there were jewels there, the unfathomable wisdom of HH Dalai Lama. I gathered them for YOU! Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

Cause & Effect are Infallible

October 27, 2011March 23, 2010 by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

An excerpt from a teaching by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo from the Vow of Love series

Cause and effect are infallible. They are 100 percent infallible. The reason I think this bears mentioning is that again and again I have seen practitioners, even those who have practiced Buddhism for a long time, do things they know will cause suffering, or even cause them to fall off the path and end their quest to follow the Buddha’s teaching. I see them create non-virtue constantly.

People trick themselves. Once they know that non-virtue is the cause for suffering, because there is a karma that ripens from the seed of non-virtue, they tend to create non-virtue in a sneaky way, thinking no one will ever know. They’ll say things like, “I’m a Buddhist. I really can’t kill. I’ve taken this vow. I’m wearing these robes.” And, whap! They’ll swat a mosquito. Or even more subtle than that, they’ll make judgments thinking, “No one knows what’s going on in my mind. No one will know.” But they are constantly judging, and they think it will never bear fruit.

According to Buddhist teaching, and according to what I have seen, karma never fails to ripen. What you have done is create a non-virtue, and that non-virtue grows like a seed in your mindstream. It is an absolutely unchanging law that non-virtue will ripen in some way. The reason why you think you are getting away with judging others, for example, is because that seed may not ripen now. It may ripen ten years from now when you won’t remember what you thought about that person. Or it may ripen next week, and you know how much you remember from last week! Or it may ripen in the next life, in which case there is no possible way that you could remember. But invariably, it will ripen.

In this way, the Buddha’s teaching is born out. Even though we know all sentient beings are suffering, that the cessation of suffering is enlightenment, and that all sentient beings want to be happy, we still don’t know how to create the causes of happiness. Through non-virtuous actions we continue to create suffering instead. Even though we have these concepts memorized, strangely, we still manage to create non-virtue continuously. Therein lies the schism, the schizophrenia, the craziness that we have: while we continue to yearn for happiness, and yearn for a life and a mind state that can only be the result of a complete absence of non-virtue, we continue to create non-virtue. It is psychotic. It is really schizophrenic. You are not in touch with reality when you act this way. You are not creating your life in a way that you truly want to live.

The problem lies in our lack of understanding of cause and effect. You need to convince yourself completely, as though it were written in cement in your mind, that cause and effect are infallible. Find a way to know this as deeply and instinctively as you know that if you stop breathing, your body will expire. Know this on such a profound level that it manifests like an instinct. Strive to internalize these ideas to such an extent that they never leave you, and that your mindstream is pregnant with them. Strive, so that you cannot consider creating non-virtue even one moment.

Now, brothers and sisters, this is a tall order. But for that reason, it is necessary to study the Buddhist truth, and you don’t have to be a Buddhist to do it. You just have to look around. Open your eyes and look around. All sentient beings are suffering. But unfortunately, until your mind is softened and gentled through realizing that all sentient beings are suffering – that you yourself are suffering – you will never be able to convince yourself of the infallibility of cause and effect, because you will never consider that it is useful to consider the infallibility of cause and effect.

Cause & Effect – It’s the Law

October 27, 2011March 21, 2010 by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo

An excerpt from a teaching by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo from the Vow of Love series

The Buddha says that all sentient beings are suffering and that enlightenment is the cessation of suffering. But we forget that enlightenment is the cessation of suffering. As a Buddhist you say, “Oh, yes, I’ve learned that. I practice the Four Thoughts that Turn the Mind. Enlightenment is the cessation of suffering. I have that memorized.” Oh, really? I must ask you then, why do you still practice the technology of suffering? Because until you achieve supreme realization, you are still practicing the technology of suffering. You realize this, and yet you continually create the circumstances that make you suffer. Here is why we do that: we have forgotten the other infallible law, the law of the certainty of cause and effect.