Understanding Dhamma and the Influence of Karma : หน้า 82/164

Suzanne Jeffrey “The Dhamma is sphere shaped. If we put our mind in the center of the Dhamma, then we will be bright all of the time and get rid of our defilements. Center of the center, middle of the middle! “In meditation, you are an observer, not a creator. Don’t make the scenario, just let it happen. The more we observe, the purer and more refined we will become. This always must be done at the center.” Another young woman asks, “When we are babies, are we totally pure?” Luang Por smiles at the question, and says: “When we are born, the body has diseases, and the mind has defilements, too. Where did these come from? Previous lifetimes. Even identical twins have different habits because they are coming from different places in previous lifetimes. From one person to the next, the defilements are different. No one person is the same as another. Even habits come through into the next lifetime – like a bank account being carried from one life to another. “When we are born, we are born carrying 50% karma with us. The other 50% is what some call free-will. That is, we have the choice of whether or not we will be doing something good with our lives. In reality, the 50% that is free-will is also dependent on our parents when we are born and how they help us to develop good or bad habits, but I have already spoken about this. “We all know, of course, that some people do very evil things, and they don’t even hesitate when they do them! But when it comes to doing good things, they hesitate. For example, if people drink, they know that it may give them liver problems, and they will die. But do they still drink? Yes! In fact, they are risking their lives in order to drink. If a person slanders another person, and they are imprisoned for it, when they come out of prison, they might want to take revenge. But does that stop them from doing the slandering? NO. People will still do evil things. People know all about HIV and sexually transmitted diseases, but they still risk their lives to have sex with prostitutes. “But who will risk their life for another person? Gamblers will sit for hours gambling, but they can’t even sit for five minutes to meditate. We are ingrained to do bad things because we are so weak! It seems like the good people are always on the wrong side, always fighting the fight! We must help ourselves! We can change ourselves and our kamma but in part it depends on our past kamma and our parents. Again, this is why we”