#platform/youtube #channel/bodhi-light  This person, 9-year-old, who asked a question, what is karma? Karma is what you do. You create karmas by three things. You create karmas with your body, you create karmas with your mouth, and you create karmas, number three, with your mind. Karma is Sanskrit for action, meaning something you do. You do with your body, you do with your mouth, you do with your mind. So, you're young at your age, you need to learn this very fundamental thing concept about karma is that the good karmas and bad karmas. For the rest of your life, I hope you believe in doing good karmas or avoiding bad karmas because that's fundamental to your happiness as a person. If you do good karmas, then good things will happen to you. When you do bad karmas, bad things will happen to you. So, the common wisdom for adults is that what goes around comes around. So, you should do good things with the three karmas of the body, the mouth, and the mind. What's a good karma with your body? Cleaning around the house, washing the dishes, help people, help mommy, help daddy, help students, help teachers, and so forth. Okay, you do good things with your arms, your hands, and so forth, right? And your legs and your body. What's good mouth karma? I will teach you something that young people are not taught. You should learn for young people, for most of you as well. What's good mouth karma? Good mouth karma is to avoid saying negative things. If you avoid saying negative things, then every time you open your mouth, what do you say? Only positive things. Because when we teach children about saying positive things or the with the mouth they mistakenly think it's like you should praise people, you should kiss up to people. No. Good mouth karma is avoid saying bad things, avoid coarse words, avoid swearing. Those are no good for you. It sounds cool, but it's rather childish, if you will. So, the good mouth karma is that you learn this is very important even for young children, young kids is that even though you have the urge to say something negative to others, like you're so ugly, you're so fat, you refrain from doing that. That's good mouth karma, by the way, by default. If you resist from saying bad things, negative things, you're creating good mouth karma, believe me. That's so fundamental. People think the good mouth karma, you praise people and so forth. No, that's too advanced. Children should first learn not to criticize, not to say coarse words, not to say bad words. That's very difficult to do because the rest of your friends are doing it. It is so difficult. In Vietnamese, we have these bad words like a lot of bad words that boys, when they see each other, right away. Okay, I can't say that you know because this is a PG-13 kind of audience that we're shooting for. Good mouth karma is avoid saying bad things, bad words, and what's left comes out of your mouth is naturally good. Finally, what's mind karma? Mind karma is is something that's very important. I wish young people are taught more young people are taught this by the parents, by the teachers. They should have good mind karmas. Good mind karmas are avoid negative thoughts. It's is fundamental because if you start right now, you don't pay attention, you so you start saying have negative thoughts and thinking no one gets it, you get away with it, right? And that's what adults do, by the way. Adults have a lot of negative thoughts and they just don't say thinking and no one knows. Let me tell you a little secret, young boy, this 9-year-old here. When your thoughts are negative, you have negative energy. People don't want to hang around you. The only kind of people want to hang around you are bad for you. Think about it. Seriously, if you have these negative thoughts in your head thinking no one knows, then you realize son all of a sudden certain people like to approach you and those are the boys or the girls who want to do bad things with you. Have you noticed that? So, young children should be taught to avoid negative thoughts. Remember, teach them the kinds of who are drawn to them when they have negative thoughts are the bad people. When they have positive thoughts, it's the good people are drawn to them. It's called positive energy and negative energy. It's very contagious. If you have positive thoughts, somehow people that like you approach you are the ones who are friendly, who are open-minded, who are good-hearted people. When you have negative thoughts, the only people who want are drawn to you are the temple, depressed people, you know? When I was younger, looking back, most of my friends were depressed cuz I'm—I'm bipolar. So, most of my friends are all depressed. We can get together, we both feel bad, we all feel bad, so we go have a drink, feel a little bit better, eat a little bit, feel a little bit better, but it doesn't go away because guess what? As soon as you get feel a little bit better, think friend would make me feel worse. And so, it's sad. It's so fundamental. So, good luck to you, kid.