Speaker: Dungse Jampal Norbu. Dungse-la, speaking from the 2023 Nyingma Summer Seminar, reminds us that the Buddha’s first teaching in Sarnath was that there is suffering. The Buddha went into great detail about his investigation into how we suffer. Our suffering springs more from our own mind and attitude than from the our physical conditions, as evidenced by people in developing countries. Our neurotic self-attachment and the five destructive emotions spin the wheel of samsara. The Dharma teaches that the path to the cessation of suffering involves working with karmic cause and effect in an open-eyed manner, seeing the results of our negative and positive actions and steering our life toward a dharmic life using practices like the Noble Eightfold Path and the Four Immeasurables. Karma is not about fault or punishment, but simply about cause and effect, our action and Nature’s reaction, the wonders of interdependent arising. As practitioners, we drip-feed samsara into our practice to develop a healthy relationship with the world and transform samsara. We take refuge in the Three Jewels as guide, path, and community as an act of appreciation and gratitude, as an alternative to the spiral of our negative habits. Dungse-la ends with an in-depth explanation of lenchak (karmic debt and codependence).

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