# The New Meditation Handbook

# Karma part 1

Tonight we begin looking at the meditation on Karma

Before we dive into this very profound and seriously the most important topic of Buddhist view, we need to recap on two things
1. Meditation
2. Going For Refuge

## Meditation
For these meditations that we study to function the way they are designed to function you need to meditate
We need a clear understanding of what is meditation. With a clear understanding we develop confidence in meditation and we begin to practice it gradually more and more sincerely. 

In general meditation is aquinting the mind with virtue thoroughly and constatly.
The word virtue might not mean much now but by the end of the period we spend on the meditation on Karma I hope you will have a good understanding and appreciation of the meaning of the word virtue. It is a key word in Buddhism, like meditation and karma.

## Going for Refuge
The previous meditation to Karma we study and contemplate the meaning of the three jewels and their importance in our practice - we practice buddhism as the method of becoming happy where happiness is defined as a peaceful mind.
To have a complete understanding of the meaning of Buddha Dharma and Sangha you must train your mind in the various Buddhist meditations, in sessions and in your daily life. Only through repeated practice of Buddhism - remember the meaning of practicing Dharma? - will we experience the change Buddha promises we can have, and only through genuinly experiencing this change that we can actually know the meaning of Dharma then the meaning of Sangha and finally the meaning of Buddha.

The meaning of Buddha is very profound and cannot be expressed in words because it is beyond conceptions and beyond the imagination of beings such as our self. But we can begin to build an idea of what is a Buddha through our own experience of how practicing Dharma has changed us and combine that with faith our ability to imagine purity.


The reason why we need to understand Buddha is because karma - the special connection between actions and their results - cannot be understood by logic alone, in fact logic can only take us part of the way and no more. Karma - the subject of why am i experiencing what I experience - is said to be deeply hidden knowledge and can only be seen directly by enlightened beings. As a side note - the reason later we develop the aspiration to become a Buddha is so that we will come to have the ability to see people's karma. Only when we can see someone's karma can we actually be of benefit to them. Until that time we are only doing a guess work.


## Karma
In the NMHB it is stated that the purpose of meditating on karma is to encourage us to purify our mind and accumulate merit.
This requires some explanations.
Generally for most people the thought I need to purify my mind is not a thought that springs naturally in their mind.