The thousands of volumes of the Buddhist canon and the commentarial literature are concerned with why we suffer.  The reason it’s such a hot topic is because if you know why you suffer, you can stop the causes of suffering and use your time for things you’d rather do.  Seems like a good idea. So peering into the many pages there, you will see that the Buddha explains that the chief cause of suffering is ignorance.

Not just general ignorance, like not knowing things. Not knowing that Carson City is the capital of Nevada is not going to be a major cause of suffering.  That type of ignorance – of specific facts or a lack of intelligence at accumulating knowledge – is secondary.  If that type of knowledge preoccupies you, according to scripture, you are aspiring to be like an eagle who can see so much from a distance, not aspiring to be a Buddha, who has the skill and knowledge to put an end to suffering, for himself and others, forever.

Ignorance, as a technical Buddhist term, refers specifically to several classes of not-understanding. The most important of these kinds of ignorance is the lack of understanding that our actions have consequences. What we do and what we have done will influence the quality of our lives in the future.

Now, if you happen to be elected to the Nevada state legislature and you don’t know enough to go to Carson City when the legislature convenes, then it might be a source of suffering for you. And if out of this secondary, lack-of-facts type of ignorance you end up in Las Vegas by mistake, then you may indeed be royally screwed.  But not just because you will miss the opening gavel of the legislative session.  No. It may be much more serious than that.  Because in Las Vegas you will encounter, again and again, on posters, billboards, t-shirts, and in the hearts and minds of your fellow lost, wisdom according to The Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority: What Happens in Vegas Stays in Vegas.

That is a golden nugget of real, genuine ignorance.  It expresses the essential mistake that produces suffering. 

I in no way mean to personally criticize the individual members of the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority, current or past. They may be good people.  They may love their children, pet their dogs, mow their lawns, give to charity, recycle religiously, and eat as vegan as possible. Or they might intentionally be bent on enticing the world to drink to excess and covet their neighbor. I do not know. I do know the effect of their slogan on people who fall for it.

Because the only thing that stays in Vegas is the dough of the folks who go there.  What “happens” in Vegas is a totally different story. Take a look at that verb: “Happens.” It’s passive. When things “happen,” it implies that people didn’t do them. They just happened. There was no will involved. No volition. And by the way, no responsibility and no blame. What a deal!  But it is a false promise.

It is notable that this very expression appears again and again in interviews with criminal suspects. You interview a guy who you have on camera shooting another guy. You have eyewitnesses. You have blood, DNA, ballistics, clothing, the whole thing. You have no doubt. But the suspect will tell the story like this: “…Yeah, we were talking, there was an argument, and then the shooting happened…” Even if you know they did it, and they know you know, they often won’t own what they did. They can’t get themselves to say, “I did it.” They’ll say, “it happened.” But it did not just happen. He did it.

And what happens in Vegas, like what happens everywhere else, happens because people do things.  People make it happen. People doing things and saying things and thinking things is “karma”—the Sanskrit for “action”, and for the result of action.  Karma does not just happen.

When you or I do wrong or right, we see ourselves act, and this perception plants a seed in our mind. It forms not only a memory, but a karmic propensity which colors our future perceptions, and which also will have a result in the future. If, for example, we frequently plant mental seeds of anger by having angry thoughts, using angry words, doing angry actions, and being attracted to situations and people that support our inclination to anger, then we will frequently encounter an angry world.  It is not magic; it is logic.  It is easy to see it play out in our own lives.

To a great degree, we choose what we do.  If we are passive, if we allow life to ‘happen” to us, we just gamble with life and ultimately, inevitably, we lose.

If we go to Las Vegas — or anywhere — and we lie, steal, cheat, engage in sexual misconduct, use intoxicants -- those acts don’t stay in Vegas. We see ourselves do those acts, and to a greater or lesser degree, depending on the seriousness of the act and to how habitual the acts are, we plant seeds in our mind which condition our future choices, the way we perceive ourselves, who we choose to hang out with, where we choose to hang out, and what we choose to do when we get there.

The idea that our actions do not have definite consequences is one of the classic definitions of ignorance, according to Buddhism. It is the mistake that leads us to easily condition ourselves to a lifetime of harmful acts. These acts are considered “wrong” because they cause suffering. The premise is that if you were not ignorant of the nature of things, you would not do things that will ultimately harm you – even if the first contact with these things appears pleasurable. If you are acting on the basis of ignorance, then you will easily be seduced by wrong acts – stealing, lying, sexual misconduct, violence – which appear to further your happiness, but ultimately cause just the opposite.

If we had wisdom in our minds instead of ignorance, its opposite, we would not be so easily seduced by bad ideas. Ideas that confirm what we want to believe, that reinforce our ignorance. Ideas that hold that indulging in pleasures that waste our brief and precious lives and time, our work, bodies and minds, and those of others, are simply innocuous entertainments. Bad ideas that say these acts will have no consequences. That you can cordon off your misdeeds geographically and leave them behind, in Vegas, or anywhere else. That you can take a break from living a decent life, and that afterwards you can go back to observing conventional mores, and no one will be the wiser. 

Whatever we do stays with us. Yes, our bodies will decline and disappear. As will our minds.  No monument, work of art, scientific formula or masterful work of literature will last very long after we have gone. What will last is the effect we have on others. We all teach continually. If there are nothing but examples of ignorance around, then that ignorance will pervade the culture and the world and echo through the generations, as human life declines and people suffer more and more. If there are examples of decency, dignity, purpose and maturity, then that influence will also spread out through space and time, unhindered, through the hearts and minds of people whose lives are uplifted by the example, and whose suffering is dispelled by following in your footsteps.

So do what you do. But be guided by the knowledge that whatever you do will stay with you and ripple out through space and time, pervading the universe, forever.

Training well tips the odds in your favor.