Good Karma: The four characteristics of karma
Good Karma 12
Venerable Thubten Chodron 
Good Karma Annual Retreat 
May 27, 2023 Part of a series of talks given during the annual Memorial Day weekend retreat based on the book Good Karma: How to Create the Causes of Happiness and Avoid the Causes of Suffering, a commentary on "The Wheel of Sharp Weapons" by Indian sage Dharmarakshita.
- Making prostrations and offerings to the Three Jewels
- Giving up attachment to possessions, accomplishments, appearances
- Four characteristics of karma
- Virtue creates happiness, nonvirtue creates misery
- A small action can have great results
- If you don’t create the cause, you don’t experience the result
- If you do create the cause, you will definitely experience the result
- Questions and answers
- The impermanence of karma
- Why do we dedicate merit?
- Commentary on Verse 10
- Clinging to our mental suffering
- Recognizing how we cause turbulence in others’ minds
- Taking on the mental suffering of all beings
- Questions and answers
- Virtuous actions and how they ripen
- Ripening of good karma seems to create more problems
- How to be politically engaged when it disturbs our mind
Venerable Thubten Chodron
Venerable Chodron emphasizes the practical application of Buddha’s teachings in our daily lives and is especially skilled at explaining them in ways easily understood and practiced by Westerners. She is well known for her warm, humorous, and lucid teachings. She was ordained as a Buddhist nun in 1977 by Kyabje Ling Rinpoche in Dharamsala, India, and in 1986 she received bhikshuni (full) ordination in Taiwan. Read her full bio.
