(Prologue: I’ve got first-hand experience that a real understanding of the laws of karma can substantially change our lives for the better. I created this weblog to share information and personal experience with others. May it be of benefit!)

I remember when my parents took me to the three-ringed circus when it came to Toronto.

The world of suffering and confusion seems to me to be like a three-ringed circus. But instead of the circus barker introducing the lions, elephants, and high-wire acts, he shouts:

Ladies and gentlemen, in this corner we have the rooster, representing the poison of passion. Over in that corner is the snake, representing the poison of aggression. And over in this corner is the pig, which represents the poison of ignorance.

The poisons are interrelated. That is why the tail of the rooster is grasped by the pig,  and the tail of the snake is grasped by the mouth of the rooster.

The role of the three poisons? To make us (our egos) feel solid, permanent, ongoing, unchangeable.

They work together. They each act to assist the others. They are partners. And for that reason I liken them to a three-ringed circus. There are three different acts going on in this ring, but at the same time they all mesh together to produce an integrated “show,” an effect.

Now how do they work together? Take the situation described in the quotation below.

Nothing was quite enough for her — she wanted more money, more property, and she was obsessed with becoming a famous Hollywood screenwriter. <source: Heart Full of Lies, Ann Rule, author of many true crime stories>

How did her ego go about achieving these goals? By the use of passion, aggression and ignorance.  She married men whom she thought she could seduce into buying her property. She rejected them when they didn’t share her obsessions. She then reverted to passion again when she looked for another man to satisfy her craving for more money, more property. She only care about their lives in relation to her own.

We describe “karma” as cause and effect. Through her actions, based on the three poisons, there will be an outcome, an effect that will affect her life. The three poisons, then, are one of the causes in the creation of karma, the eighth link in the 12 links (factors) of interdependent origination.

Other words for the three poisons are craving, grasping, fixation, clinging, attachment.

Listen to K. D. Lang’s song Constant Craving. She nails it, perfectly! <source: HH Dalai Lama XIV, Victoria, Canada, circa 1988>

Ego lives on a diet of poisons! If we ingest a lot of poison, we die. Or at least get very ill. But ego thrives on them and treats them like prize possessions. They are safely stored in the strongholds of  our habitual patterns like a bank  stores bonds. And when the bonds [causes and conditions] mature, they yield dividends [karmic effect].  And this effect becomes another cause. Thus the life of confusion and suffering simultaneously perpetuates and maintains itself.

That’s why we must “loot the private stronghold of passion, aggression, and ignorance.” Give up attachment. Give up the idea that there is some solid reference point that we can hang onto.

(To understand the larger context surrounding the three poisons, click here.)

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