The Law of Cause and Effect: The Root of all Dharma

Note: The following is an excerpt from an exchange between Milarepa (1028 — 1111) and some of his students. Milarepa is renowned for, among many other reasons, his disciplined meditation practice. After receiving the complete body of Dharma teachings from his teacher, Marpa Lotsawa, he spent the rest of his life in meditation retreat, almost exclusively in caves in the Himalayan mountains.

 

Zhiwa O said to Milarepa, “It is impossible to comprehend how you expressed devotion for the lama when you requested Dharma or persevered through meditation in the mountains once you received [the teachings]. When we think about such actions it seems we are only pretending to practice Dharma. We shall never be liberated from [samsara]. What can we do?” . . .

 

Milarepa replied, “If you consider the misery of [samsara] and of [taking rebirth in] the lower realms, my devotion and perseverance do not seem so great. All dedicated individuals who hear the Dharma teachings on cause and effect and develop conviction about them are capable of such perseverance. But those with no conviction about the Dharma do not understand it. They are unable to renounce the eight worldly concerns, and adopt them instead. For this reason, conviction about the law of cause and effect is extremely important. Those who continually show signs that they lack conviction even about the obvious aspects of the law of cause and effect will find it difficult to develop an understanding of, and conviction about the more subtle teachings on emptiness, even though explanations on emptiness are used in many examples of scripture and reasoning. After you have conviction about emptiness, you understand that emptiness itself appears as the law of cause and effect. You then begin to exert yourself in virtuous practice, adopting and rejecting various actions according to the law of cause and effect, and abandoning [non-virtuous] actions. This is the conviction that the law of cause and effect is the root of all Dharma. Diligence and precision are therefore extremely important as you abandon [non-virtuous] deeds and practice virtue.”

 

from The Life of Milarepa

by Tsangnyon Heruka