Extracted from the website of Association Bouddhiste Vajrayana en France and translated (「念頭」與「咒力」之因果) into English:

The Cause and Effect between
‘Thoughts’ and ‘Power of Mantras’

Rinpoche first discoursed in May-1990
Rinpoche repeated it on 13^th May, 2000 (after about 10 years)
Uploaded to the Website on 8^th October, 2014 (and then after about 14 years again)

Thoughts
Please visit our website
＞	Wisdom Plaza
＞＞	Marvellous Essays
＞＞＞	Judgment from the King of Hell

The Power of Mantras
●	The power of mantras can only stop the hindrance of others’ bad karma for a short while. Though it can wipe out bad karma, the power of mantras is also a kind of Dharma power. Hence, the utilization of Dharma power will result in the existence of cause and effect. With the so called ‘Miraculous Power cannot defeat Karma’, Man can only eliminate one’s bad karma by the power of meritorious virtue derived from doing good deeds, keeping the precepts and practising great cultivation (such as becoming a monk/nun or practicing Highest Yoga). Moreover, when chanting mantras, one can transfer them (all merits) to sentient beings so that all of them can be benefited and in turn, one has also sown the farmland of good fortune.
●	Like the case when the Sun shines on a mirror, some of the light rays will be reflected to the shades so that they can also be filled with brightness. However, if one is blind, one still fails to see the light. One can see the light because one has eyes, so mankind with eyesight represent ‘People possess good roots by origin’ while the blind stand for Icchantika (people who seriously transgress against the Buddhist moral codes and vinaya) who lack good roots.
●	Sunshine which can light up every single corner represents the Buddha Dharma. Buddha Dharma enlightens minds and soul of sentient beings in a systematic and guiding way that they are able to eliminate the evil and follow the good spontaneously. Yet, it is of the first importance to make the blind restore their eyesight to see the sunlight and accept it. In other words, it is to make sentient beings sow the farmland of good fortune first so that they can become people with good roots. Thus, they can easily see and accept Buddha Dharma. Buddha Dharma pilots sentient beings to save themselves first because it is only after one is self-saved that one can save the others. Everything is reaping the fruits of one’s actions (suffering the results of one’s actions). Therefore, ‘Bodhisattvas are fear of sowing the causes while sentient beings are afraid of bearing the effects’.

Retribution for good or evil deeds
Rinpoche’s mother was the Chief Nurse in the Department of Gynecology and Obstetricsbirth until her retirement during her lifetime. In Rinpoche’s childhood, his Mum had told him a lot about her seeing many scenes of newborn-baby deformities, so she always urged Rinpoche to show mercy by doing good deeds at early age in order to accumulate merits.

It is heard that there has been a bebe (new born baby) whose physique looks like a duck recently. Hearing this really makes one have heartache. In the theory of traditional Chinese medicine, there is a perspective of diet therapy that ‘Like must be treated with like’ (remark: it is the eating of different internal organs of animals to nourish accordingly different parts of one’s body), but doctors who practise Western medicine negate the point at issue. They said that (eating) food in general could not cause any change in the genes of human beings. Hence, it is definitely impossible for a pregnant woman to give birth to a duck-shaped baby monster because she has eaten ducks. The birth defects may be caused by factors of heredity or affected by the growing environment of the fetus (in its mother’s womb) during pregnancy. Explaining from the viewpoint of Buddhism, a birth defect originally is a kind of (evil) karma.

Having a certain thought or making use of the power of mantra will bring about a cause which will then lead to a corresponding effect. From the incident mentioned above, one can see that having different thoughts would give rise to different consequences (possessing glory, splendour, wealth and rank/enjoying the tranquility of an easy and carefree life). Utilizing the power of mantra blindly without studying the antecedents and consequences carefully to settle one’s own personal problems or help others solve their personal issues will both suffer from having sequelae. If it had been worked, the Buddha would have released the power of mantras to rescue the people of Sakya and the Venerable Maudgalyayana who was the foremost in miraculous power would have escaped from the tragic death caused by the throwing of big stones by the non-Buddhists!