Clean This Karma

Just seeing your karma is not enough. We say in our school, first, you perceive that you have some heavy karma. For example, you have some habit that makes you run to the kitchen at midnight and eat another meal.  When you should be practicing more, or you should be sleeping, but you go to the kitchen and start taking all the food. That is what we call karma, heavy karma. Maybe the person who goes to the kitchen at midnight, they eat deliberately very little for lunch, very little for dinner so they can stay thin, and then they go into to the kitchen at midnight and eat another meal. That is just one example of karma. 

But how do you change this? First you perceive “oh yeah, I have this karma.” Then we say, “clean this karma.” If you don’t clean it, you won’t see it in all its glory. You won’t see it completely. You will only see one part of it.  You feel guilty because you did it, but you are still hungry, and you still feel like you were right. “I was right, I should have this midnight meal.” 

This means you did not really clean this karma.  The cleaning the karma would be “Okay, I still have to have a midnight meal, but first I am going to go to the dharma room and do 108 bows, then sit 10 minutes, then have the meal.”  This is the first step in cleaning. So you kinda clean it a bit, but you still can’t finish the habit. The habit is still so strong. 

Then the next step is you continue practicing and the karmic habit becomes lighter, or cleaner.  It is not so heavy. Finally, it does not seem as necessary. 

Then the next thing is using this karma. This karma is getting lighter, it is almost gone. But the next part would be, in the example I gave you of the person very attached to food, is think about what kind of food other people like. How can I give food to others, how can I provide good food to others? That is the next course. So really using your karma depends on what karma you have. It really depends on what you are drawn to, and what your talent is. Okay?