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Karma
Quandarius
Explorer
The category of this question is a matter of necessity, as I could not find a more suitable one (i.e. it does not concern beginners only).
I have tried to make some kind of sense out of the idea of karma, as understood by the generality of Buddhists, Hindus etc. It takes one into a complicated path of reasoning, and I have become a bit sceptical about the possibility of Joe Soap or Mary Brown paying for something that was perpetrated a few lifetimes ago, in this or a later life. These kinds of assertions may be true, of course, but I don't know, and can't make any ultimate sense of them. Of course, whether one believes in karma or not, it is obvious that, if one follows a certain bent, whether it is to slip into drunkenness or some other vice (or, on the contrary, a path of aspiration and effort to improve the tone of one's life), there will be natural consequences. They will be printed, as it were, onto one's relationships and into one's nervous structure, etc. and these consequences will be unavoidable. However, if one makes a single (maybe a big) slip, I cannot see how this will be recorded, for all time, into the "Akashic Records". If, after making the slip, you say, hey, that wasn't so good — I really must try to avoid doing that again, it seems to me that there is a chance of not having to pay for it, since one has learned a lesson from it immediately. I mean, suppose a young man found himself drawn into a plot, with others, to rob a bank. The hold-up is successful, and they get away with the money. Years pass. The man, now much older, has given away his share of the money because of a bad conscience after the event. True, one consequence is that he will always need to be looking over his shoulder, but justice might not catch up with him. Are we to understand that some cosmic Record Keeper has entered the deed in a big, black book, and that, in some future life, maybe, the inheritor of his deed (karma) will, in some future life, have to pay for it in some way?
Years ago, I read a book by Nolan Pliny Jacobson, called: Buddhism, the Religion of Analysis. In it, the author quotes a statement by the Buddha (recorded in Nikaya something or other), in which the Buddha is reported to have said: "I do not teach a doctrine of karma (the common Hindu assumption was that there is karma, in the way most Buddhists understand it), because karma requires justice, and justice is not it". This seems to chime, in my mind, with a statement of a Zen practitioner, who said: "They told us that we were going to Hell, but lo, here is the lotus, opening its blossoms for me to fall on!" — or something very much in that vein.
Several months ago, I came across a Tibetan Buddhist website (the address of which, I failed to note down, and which I cannot now find). On this website, some writer or other said that most Buddhist communities use the teaching of karma as a useful tool, which keeps people mindful of what they are doing, but which, in reality, is not true. I don't know, of course, what qualifications this writer had, that enabled him to make such a statement. However, it certainly rings a bell with me. The old teaching about Hell Fire was a similar tool. It did tend to keep many on the straight and narrow, but, to many more, it also must have caused a good deal of mental anguish. As far as I am concerned, I should want to try to live a decent life whether there is any karma, hell, or not. If this is aspiration is not cherished, one fails to even have a chance of realising one's human potential (even as a secular humanist). It's rather like one's taste in music. One is quite entitled to listen to rubbishy noise that, with the masses, passes for music. However, one has only to be attentive, and one knows what music is, and what is not!
With the teaching of karma, there is an associated problem, and it is not so easily dispelled.
If there is karma, in whatever sense it may be true, (like, despite the fact that there is no continuing identity, "I" will reap the fruits, painful or pleasant, of what is done in my life now), then one has a slight basis for believing that things might slowly get better (despite the teaching that, just round the corner — i.e. in the very next life — there will be a HUGE debt of suffering to pay, for something that "I" did when, for example, "I" was a member of the hordes of Ghengis Khan). However, if karma is just a belief, and has no basis in reality, then there is the frightful prospect that, at death, when my present persona dissolves forever, the next conscious moment MIGHT be one of seeing the fire of Moloch a few feet away, before my body is hurled into the furnace. After all, when I die, babies will be born, and they will all feel that they are "I".
If you go into this, it seems to end up all the same, really, inasmuch as, even if there is karma to pay off, Moloch's furnace might be my next payment off of my debt. It had been sitting there for thirty centuries, and now, instead of, as in my present life, my being a reasonably affluent suburban white person, there might be a dramatic change of culture and time, etc. Karma or no karma, then, the potential for one's next life is like that afforded by a lottery ticket.
With the best will in the world, and with due respect to that great institution, the Buddhist Sangha, a mere belief in karma does raise difficulties. It just does not seem to be enough, to submit to spiritual authority in the matter of karma.
Partly, in all of the above, I have been thinking aloud. I offer my apologies for any inconsistencies that might have been revealed. Nevertheless, if someone, with a clearer mind than mine, would like to respond or to offer any comments whatever on this subject, I should be very interested in what they may have to say. Thanks in anticipation!
I have tried to make some kind of sense out of the idea of karma, as understood by the generality of Buddhists, Hindus etc. It takes one into a complicated path of reasoning, and I have become a bit sceptical about the possibility of Joe Soap or Mary Brown paying for something that was perpetrated a few lifetimes ago, in this or a later life. These kinds of assertions may be true, of course, but I don't know, and can't make any ultimate sense of them. Of course, whether one believes in karma or not, it is obvious that, if one follows a certain bent, whether it is to slip into drunkenness or some other vice (or, on the contrary, a path of aspiration and effort to improve the tone of one's life), there will be natural consequences. They will be printed, as it were, onto one's relationships and into one's nervous structure, etc. and these consequences will be unavoidable. However, if one makes a single (maybe a big) slip, I cannot see how this will be recorded, for all time, into the "Akashic Records". If, after making the slip, you say, hey, that wasn't so good — I really must try to avoid doing that again, it seems to me that there is a chance of not having to pay for it, since one has learned a lesson from it immediately. I mean, suppose a young man found himself drawn into a plot, with others, to rob a bank. The hold-up is successful, and they get away with the money. Years pass. The man, now much older, has given away his share of the money because of a bad conscience after the event. True, one consequence is that he will always need to be looking over his shoulder, but justice might not catch up with him. Are we to understand that some cosmic Record Keeper has entered the deed in a big, black book, and that, in some future life, maybe, the inheritor of his deed (karma) will, in some future life, have to pay for it in some way?
Years ago, I read a book by Nolan Pliny Jacobson, called: Buddhism, the Religion of Analysis. In it, the author quotes a statement by the Buddha (recorded in Nikaya something or other), in which the Buddha is reported to have said: "I do not teach a doctrine of karma (the common Hindu assumption was that there is karma, in the way most Buddhists understand it), because karma requires justice, and justice is not it". This seems to chime, in my mind, with a statement of a Zen practitioner, who said: "They told us that we were going to Hell, but lo, here is the lotus, opening its blossoms for me to fall on!" — or something very much in that vein.
Several months ago, I came across a Tibetan Buddhist website (the address of which, I failed to note down, and which I cannot now find). On this website, some writer or other said that most Buddhist communities use the teaching of karma as a useful tool, which keeps people mindful of what they are doing, but which, in reality, is not true. I don't know, of course, what qualifications this writer had, that enabled him to make such a statement. However, it certainly rings a bell with me. The old teaching about Hell Fire was a similar tool. It did tend to keep many on the straight and narrow, but, to many more, it also must have caused a good deal of mental anguish. As far as I am concerned, I should want to try to live a decent life whether there is any karma, hell, or not. If this is aspiration is not cherished, one fails to even have a chance of realising one's human potential (even as a secular humanist). It's rather like one's taste in music. One is quite entitled to listen to rubbishy noise that, with the masses, passes for music. However, one has only to be attentive, and one knows what music is, and what is not!
With the teaching of karma, there is an associated problem, and it is not so easily dispelled.
If there is karma, in whatever sense it may be true, (like, despite the fact that there is no continuing identity, "I" will reap the fruits, painful or pleasant, of what is done in my life now), then one has a slight basis for believing that things might slowly get better (despite the teaching that, just round the corner — i.e. in the very next life — there will be a HUGE debt of suffering to pay, for something that "I" did when, for example, "I" was a member of the hordes of Ghengis Khan). However, if karma is just a belief, and has no basis in reality, then there is the frightful prospect that, at death, when my present persona dissolves forever, the next conscious moment MIGHT be one of seeing the fire of Moloch a few feet away, before my body is hurled into the furnace. After all, when I die, babies will be born, and they will all feel that they are "I".
If you go into this, it seems to end up all the same, really, inasmuch as, even if there is karma to pay off, Moloch's furnace might be my next payment off of my debt. It had been sitting there for thirty centuries, and now, instead of, as in my present life, my being a reasonably affluent suburban white person, there might be a dramatic change of culture and time, etc. Karma or no karma, then, the potential for one's next life is like that afforded by a lottery ticket.
With the best will in the world, and with due respect to that great institution, the Buddhist Sangha, a mere belief in karma does raise difficulties. It just does not seem to be enough, to submit to spiritual authority in the matter of karma.
Partly, in all of the above, I have been thinking aloud. I offer my apologies for any inconsistencies that might have been revealed. Nevertheless, if someone, with a clearer mind than mine, would like to respond or to offer any comments whatever on this subject, I should be very interested in what they may have to say. Thanks in anticipation!
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Comments
Kamma is volitional action - that is, whatever kamma is accrued is roughly because of what you decide to think/say/do.
But kamma is also one of the 4 Unconjecturables, and trying to figure it out, would send you round the bend, so the Buddha strongly recommended you don't bother.
The secret is not what happened, and why.
The secret is what you decide to do about it now.
And as @Federica said its not a judegement. No one is recording actions and then making sure justice is done. Its a natural phenomena like throwing a pebble in a pond makes waves, no one decides how much force the pebble has and makes the ripples happen accordingly.
We can already see how time makes us feel separated from consequence, even within a few short years--lung cancer from smoking doesn't generally manifest for 20-25 years, and since that feel so "far off" for many young people, they go ahead and smoke. Not because they don't intellectually accept possibility of the consequence, but because they feel so removed from it by time. It makes it feel "unreal."
We may feel that a karmic consequence experienced much, much later in life--or even in a future life--is somehow less "real," but as we can see from several examples, the passage of time doesn't necessarily make anything less real.
I know this is kind of a silly example.
Not all Buddhists believe in karma as defined this way, but I suspect since the belief has made it this far, it's probably here to stay. No matter what you believe, I suspect as you practice, it becomes more and more irrelevant. Buddhism is a message of freedom from karma, in whatever form you believe it to take.
If one views the suffering of a baby as being caused by previous life karma one could condemn the child as deserving their punishment and leave them to their suffering. Or one could understand that we all suffer from the results of our past actions and help to relieve the suffering of the baby.
Another way to see it is if someone were drowning in a lake a karma = fate person would say thats their karma and let them drown. If however someone were to jump in and save the drowning person, certainly that is something that is possible to happen, then it wouldn't be their karma to drown. So karma can't be fate and its a wrong view to see it as such.
Karma is potential. Meaning it doesn't dictate events, a particular potential comes into play when other causes and conditions are conducive for it to happen. Example, someone has a lot of karmic potential to be wealthy, that karma won't happen on its own its takes the proper causes and conditions to occur such as buying a lottery ticket or getting a good education.
But you can 'transform' kamma considering your current thoughts, words and actions and measuring your perceptions and responses.....
the kamma that was, is.
the kamma that might be, isn't.
I have been thinking that facing what is here and now in front of us is much more effective when we are not thinking of the cause in this life or a past one, we are not worrying about the future and we are not judging ourselves and others in our quest for fairness. And when we take the personal out of reality then we can just do what we need to do, and seems likely we will create less (negative) karma.
Don't forget it is positive too,
Similarly, karma is spiritual law that can be observed.
Go up to a big, burly man, call him a bastard, and kick him
between the legs.
The result of your bad karma will be quite immediate.
Torture a dog to death, the result of your bad karma
will not be immediate but it will come.
Just wondering, what do you think happen to suicide bombers?
Did they get away with murder?
Buddha says no.
Has anyone seen the scripture quoted by Nolan Pliny Jacobson? I should like to know what the context was (in order to evaluate the Buddha's meaning), and whether there really are grounds for thinking that the Buddha, after all, did not teach a doctrine of karma.
As regards the comments about karma (action) being a bit like ripples in a pond, or in a field of light, these may well be correct, for aught that I know. There is the obvious aspect of karma, deeds, which, if repeatedly engaged in, cannot but have an effect on the doer, for good or bad. However, I'm not sure that one ought to take a traditional teaching at face value. Even the Buddha encouraged a sceptical attitude to beliefs. Of course, Federica is quite right in saying that what matters is how we react to circumstances.
What I am concerned to find out is whether the teaching of kamma was a part of Buddha's teaching, or not. The scripture that I cite seems to indicate that he did not. However, even if he did deny that he taught a doctrine of karma, only an idiot would say that Buddha was indifferent to the quality of people's actions.
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/authors/nanamoli/wheel248.html
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/sn/sn35/sn35.145.than.html
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/mn/mn.135.than.html
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/ptf/dhamma/sacca/sacca4/samma-ditthi/kamma.html
By expressing true confession, the seeds of some bad karma from the past will no longer come into fruition. Events from Good/bad karma is just manifestation of our mind.
However, if one repeats the same thing over and over, confession is not going to change anything. That's insanity defined by Einstein.
Edit:I think I misunderstand the word: Karma. I interpreted it as cause and effect.
I just looked it up in the dirctionar. It's means just actions.
That changes things, doesn't it?
Vippaka is the consequence/effect.
there is Positive Kamma, there is Neutral Kamma, and there is Negative Kamma.
They are all, however, quite deliberate and pre-meditated, intentional.
As for results ripening in future lives, assuming the possibility, of course, a cause is simply an event that we conceive of as setting into motion, or at least helping to condition, a serious of related events. But those resulting events only take shape if, and last as long as, the appropriate supporting conditions are present. In Buddhism, this concept is called this/that conditionality (idappaccayata), and is expressed by this short formula: One way to look at it is that a casual process can be self-sustaining, with causes creating effects, and effect acting as causes, creating feedback loops. Moreover, if you admit the possibility of immaterial causes and not just material ones (assuming that a clear distinction between the two can even be made), then the continuation of said process isn't limited by or to a single material body. And if you believe Bertrand Russell, the more we understand about matter (i.e., energy), the more the word itself becomes "no more than a conventional shorthand for stating causal laws concerning events" (An Outline of Philosophy).
Furthermore, the Buddhist conception of causality is non-linear in that the present moment is viewed as being conditioned by both past and present actions, which creates multiple feedback loops, meaning that, among other things, there's a complex array of competing events allowing for some causes to produce effects immediately, and some that manifest over a period of time. In addition, this provides the possibility for some results to cancel others out and/or displace others in the queue.
For additional references (in case you're not that familiar with Buddhism), you may find this series of talks and this study guide helpful in better understanding the Buddhist conception of causality, as well as the intended purpose of these teachings; which I'd argue aren't meant to be used to construct a rigid, metaphysical worldview, but as conceptual tools to be utilized in the quest to end suffering. That's my two cents, at any rate.
I simply do not know whether the sayings attributed to the Buddha really were his sayings, or whether these things have been put into his mouth by those that believed in karma. Nor am I intellectually equipped to find out. Of course, the same applies to the statement attributed to Buddha, which I quoted from Nolan Pliny Jacobson's book, and which has the Buddha saying that he did not teach a doctrine of karma. That, too, could have been falsely ascribed to the Buddha, for anything I may know.
It would be nice to say that it the comments have helped, but I don't think they have. In fact, after reading those discourses, there is a slight feeling of depression (I know myself, and my ways, far too well, to be in raptures!)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karma_in_Buddhism