The karmic bond between parent and child

A thought arises and the fruit is received; conditions arise, conditions cease — unmoving as a mountain.

Because of the merit-fruit and karmic-fruit relationships pulled over from past lives and this life, some people give birth to unfilial children, give birth to descendants who ruin the family fortune to take revenge.Of course, those paying back a debt of gratitude come too — the kids come back and they are the ones who really know how to study, who are very filial.Some repay the kindness only for a short time.You've seen it on TV: a filial son in his twenties helps deliver goods and then dies in a car accident.That's a short-term repayment — once he's done helping, time's up and he leaves.

Disciple: But if they go like that, the parents are heartbroken — is that called repaying kindness?

Master: I often say, bodhisattvas' eyes see differently from your eyes.In bodhisattvas' eyes there is no life and death, no family affection, only great love.No suffering, no happiness — everything is only the arising of conditions, the meeting, the ceasing of conditions.So the bodhisattva's mind rests in eternal peace.Nothing can shake the bodhisattva's mind.Everything in the world is only an outer appearance going through change.We feel the way we do because we are still below the sixth-consciousness level, still spinning inside the perception of eye, ear, nose, tongue, body, mind — which is why we feel pain and cannot be liberated.So we need to transform our perception, transform it into the seventh consciousness manas, the eighth consciousness ālaya, the ninth consciousness amala — that is behavior above the sixth consciousness, that is the bodhisattva's view, and it is a completely different world from your view.

In the bodhisattva's eyes, you — you are all poor.What is poor?The bodhisattva's world has no such thing as poor.When you reach that level of elevation, you have no concept of money at all, because with the bodhisattva's supernatural power you have whatever you want, don't want whatever you don't want — there is essentially no gaining or losing of material things.There is no joy as we know it.The bodhisattva's world is called ever-blissful.Ever-blissful means no sorrow, no suffering, no hatred — that's called ever-blissful.The mind stays within that boundary.So when you use your feelings to say, "Ai, Bodhisattva, don't you know I'm going through this and that…" — that's impossible.

Disciple: But some, say, when it's their own family member, they'll complain and say, I prostrate to the Buddha, I prostrate to the bodhisattvas, how come they don't bless me?

Master: I've said before, the ancestors' obstructions account for 50%.The bloodline running in you is carrying their blood and their DNA information.So the ancient saying, "mother and child's hearts are connected" — this really is the case.The connection of the mind runs all the way through.The child is just your copy, and you are just the ancestors' copy — just copies.

Disciple: Like my grandson lately keeps seeing "people" talking to him.He tells his mother: They told me to do this and that… — "them."

Master: That means it's several.

Disciple: So it's not just one.

Master: "Them" — at least two or more.

Disciple: The kid is just seeing them, is it the ancestors?Who knows!

Master: Can't be seen.

Disciple: But the kid sees them.So I told him — the kid can chant "Om Ah Hum," he's four years old, and he said he sees them in our home.

Master: Actually children — I keep talking about the pineal gland, which starts to shrink after age 12.The pineal gland is the location of the heavenly eye.Whether you connect to the spirit realm or to the dharmadhātu, you rely on that pineal gland, that chip, a very tiny chip.Before 12 it's still beautiful, like a grape, very beautiful.After 12 — some don't even make it to 12, because kids now are exposed to too much media, video, and other polluting things, so pretty much around 5 it starts shrinking.In earlier times it was around 12, because society wasn't that complicated.Now kids have TV, movies, phones, computers — they watch all this stuff.

Disciple: People say children today have gotten smarter.

Master: But their spirituality has dropped.They seem very smart, but their spirituality is very low.

Disciple: Then what should we do?

Master: It's low — what can you do, you can't rescue him!Like a lady disciple's daughter — 20 out of 24 hours on the phone.

Disciple: But right now he's not being given TV or anything, he just talks to them by himself.

Master: It's because the kid rarely watches TV, less polluted, so his spiritual perception is higher.

Disciple: So it's okay, it's normal?

Master: Doesn't matter — for most it's gone by around age 12, it slowly disappears.

Disciple: Yesterday he told me, Grandma, my prayer beads are gone.

Should we show the child a photo of a Buddha, a bodhisattva, or a deceased family member — which one is it?Is it among these?

Master: I don't recommend doing that.Why?Don't turn make-believe into reality, don't paint the picture blacker and blacker.If you keep encouraging him to look, he'll keep thinking it's this, it's that — you're instead creating some hallucinatory things in his brain.I think there's no need.It's fine, it's nothing.So when my disciples see things while sitting on the lotus in spiritual practice, I always tell them, that's no big deal.A mainland disciple of mine, a woman practicing Tantra, about to become a nun — when she meditates she can see bodhisattvas, see who comes to the mandala, this and that, and she'll say, "Master, I saw so-and-so again…" I'd tell her: that's nothing to brag about, those things were there all along, saying it is no big deal — "wait, I just saw something else"...I'd tell her: that's nothing either.Actually I know what state you've seen, but I'd tell her: it's nothing.You can't encourage them — encourage them and they'll go off the rails.The more you show the kid, the more he thinks it's real.Then he can't leave that state.After all, he still has to live a normal life later — don't drag him into that scene.

Disciple: Then we can only have him keep chanting Om Ah Hum, Om Ah Hum, Om Ah Hum.

Master: So actually the universe is full of these things.The earth is a memory bank, it's a giant magnet.This magnet can record audio and video.All the memories from however many generations of humans there have been are inside this ball — that's the hard drive.So many people can search for things on this hard drive.Some people have the ability to look things up.Like me — I can input a certain question, and I'll see images of keywords appearing, then I go search.So once you've trained to a certain level, you can search the earth's memory, like plugging a giant USB into the earth and going on the earth-computer to search.

Master: So when the Buddha, in his final practice, entered samādhi in sitting meditation, he was fusing himself — fusing with the earth, fusing with the universe.Once fused, everything is interconnected with me.

Disciple: So that's why the great earth could bear witness for the Buddha.

Master: Yes, that's clear now.Why, more than 2,500 years after the Buddha, people still so revere the spirit of the Buddha, still receive the bodhisattvas' blessings, the Buddha's blessings — it's all still on this earth.

Disciple: So the Buddha hasn't really entered final samādhi.

Master: No — the spirit doesn't die.Watch the movie Lucy and you'll understand.When you reach a certain elevation, all the soul-light values on your body start to scatter again.Last time I told the story of Water-Moon Guanyin — in this universe, or in this planet, all kinds of varieties of soul-light values are spread everywhere.So the air has carbon, oxygen, hydrogen, ammonia, sulfur — about tens of thousands of kinds of particles, but we can't see them.Sometimes you deny it, but chemistry and physics experiments show the air contains tens of thousands of things, some of which can't even be measured as to what they are — those are soul-light particles.So soul-light particles aren't only on earth.Those that can enter the earth and those that cannot — screening is done.The atmosphere is a filter: which soul-light particles are allowed in, which soul-light particles are not allowed to leave.We are the ones who fell to earth and can't leave — that's called materialization.So we can't leave.

So this is why the atmospheric gods are forever stuck inside the atmosphere, they can't fly out — they are called atmospheric gods.What are atmospheric gods?Wangye, and some of the Wangye-gong we worship in Taoism, and some of the gods people worship in temples — those are atmospheric gods.They still have to transmigrate, because they're still inside the atmosphere.

Disciple: What about the Jade Emperor?

Master: The Jade Emperor is inside the Lingxiao Palace — that is a higher level.But he is still in the second heaven of Trāyastriṃśa (the 33 heavens), so the Jade Emperor rarely enters transmigration.Mazu still has to transmigrate once every 400 years.Mazu's practice was attained by a human being in that life, not something passed down slowly from an ancient Buddha, so she is still within the rules of transmigration.Some Tudigong transmigrate once every 60 years.

Why do we sometimes see on someone that they are a certain god reincarnated?It does happen.Gods still reincarnate.

So once when I was hypnotizing my disciples — one a high school student, one a middle school student — after hypnosis it turned out they were reincarnations of the Third Prince (Nezha) from their own village.The kid had no concept of this at all.Under hypnosis he went back to his past life, and he turned out to be the Flower-Faced Prince from their village.Why did he have this karmic connection to reincarnate?There is a story to it.His parents prayed for it — prayed for a child who could come protect their family, because they were being bullied, their property seized, they were being beaten by their relatives.Later they gave birth to this child, and he grew to almost 2 meters tall — do you know how strong?But bald, no hair.When he came to be my disciple in high school, I was shocked — almost 2 meters, walks with sound, boom boom boom.But why — very burly, laughs like an idiot, why?Round face, two dimples, when he's not laughing he's imposing, when he laughs he's "heh heh heh," you really can't take it, just like a kid.At one look he really was the Third Prince.

Disciple: If he didn't speak, people wouldn't notice.

Master: I'd say nothing — really the Third Prince, two dimples, round face, no hair, exactly the type.In his family he was the biggest and tallest.So they finally waited until he was in middle school — he was already very tall and big.Now when people came to the house to bully them, he'd stand up, give one roar, and the people all ran.His uncles, relatives — because his parents were honest people, skinny and frail.

Disciple: Then how did they end up getting bullied like that?

Master: Because of the property the ancestors left.His father was the most filial, so the ancestors left him the nicest plot of land.The less filial ones were given odd leftover plots.After the ancestors died, these people were honest, looked a bit dim-witted, so the relatives said "back then the division was wrong, you grabbed it all," threatened them, intimidated them, said they'd beat them: "you'd better give it back," this and that.His parents were illiterate, so they were scared.There was no one in the family who could stand up for them.Finally they waited for this kid to be reincarnated and reach middle school, he was already big."Come on, come hit me" — he was really fierce.

Disciple: This couple put up with their relatives for over a decade.

Master: They put up with their relatives for over a decade.Beaten until they were vomiting blood.He came into our pharmacy to get medicine, that's when he told the story, getting medicine for the injuries.At that time I was still running a Chinese medicine clinic.

Disciple: So the Third Prince came to repay kindness?

Master: No.It was because the couple went every day to the Flower-Faced Prince Temple in their village to worship, to cry, to appeal.

Master: I asked the Flower-Faced Prince, you are a god, why come down to be reborn?

The Flower-Faced Prince replied: Even a god cannot be stirred by emotion.Once stirred by emotion, down you come.Because being a god is of course compassionate, guarding this village — and the couple came every time they got beaten, running to the temple to cry and complain, asking the god for help.Crying — sometimes truly, the god is moved too.They really were pitiful!Only that one thought: I need to go protect you — that thought turned the whole thing around.I asked, you are a god, nice and fine, why reincarnate to this place?He said, there was no way!The couple ran to me day in and day out to cry and complain, cried until I was moved to pity.Once a mind of emotion stirred, heaven told him to go.You go to their home and help them.He had one willpower-thought: I ought to help them — one thought and it turned.

Master: So the thoughts you throw out at any moment are extremely important.Thoughts are the most important guiding line at the moment of death — the thought of the moment.So in daily life you need to settle the thought well.The mind must rest and not move.The thought must be locked in and never move — this is called the vajra mind.This thought of mine, I'm going wherever I'm going.No matter what event, this thought of mine will never disappear.Because in the state of dying you will get lost, you'll run into darkness, run into many situations popping up — my thought stays steady the same, grip the thought and don't let go, then it won't run wild.If the thought suddenly flashes off, what pops out is that emotional stuff."I can't bear to leave my grandchild!So cute, I can't bear it" — then you're done.Twenty years later, when your grandson has grown up, started a family, had children, you've turned into your grandson's child.

Disciple: Not anymore now.Under the Master's teaching, I have gradually let go.

Master: That's what hooks you back.

So I often say, there must be an unmoving Buddha within your heart.No matter what, I (the Buddha in the heart) still don't move.When I speak to you, I (the Buddha in the heart) over here doesn't move.I (the Buddha in the heart) am still here in meditation, because that (the Buddha in the heart) has nothing to do with any of this.I can't pollute it (the Buddha in the heart).Speaking — isn't that the mouth speaking?What does that have to do with me (the Buddha in the heart)?That (the Buddha in the heart) says it this way: you say what you say, I (the Buddha in the heart) am still in meditation.You must train to this level of skill.There is an unmoving Buddha within the heart.No matter what you do, it still maintains its meditation.Only this will do — this means outer behavior, emotions, actions have nothing to do with it.I keep my heart well protected.My heart is forever extremely clean, well guarded.Any change outside is just passing clouds and smoke.

Excerpted from a Q&A session with Master Urgyen Topden Rinpoche on 2018-12-15.