Karma:
that word that gets thrown around a lot. People talk about "good"
karma versus "bad" karma, or "your" karma versus
"mine." But despite the term's popularity, it seems like
everybody has a different idea about what it actually means. If karma
is truly one of the Buddha's most important teachings, as he himself
repeatedly emphasized, then to follow in his footsteps, we need to be
clear about its definition.
The
Problems with "Agricultural" Karma
Probably
one of the most popular misunderstandings about Buddhist Karma is the
idea that everything that happens to us is our karma. If we win the
lottery or have an attractive partner, it's because we performed good
deeds in the past – we have "good" karma. If we get hit
by a truck or our partner cheats on us, it's because we misbehaved
and have "bad" karma. And, of course, what we do now will
determine our future results. Let's just call this the agricultural
view of karma: we reap what we sow.
So,
what's wrong with this idea? Well, whether we're Buddhist or not, it
creates lots of intellectual problems.
The
first is that believing we reap what we sow simply seems to
contradict a great deal of our experience. We act with kindness,
maybe dropping a few coins into a homeless man's can, only to have
him call us a cheap yuppie. Or our chronically underperforming
co-worker who spends most of the time surfing Facebook and pilfering
office supplies gets a promotion.
In
other words, the wicked very often seem to prosper, even thrive,
while the good seem to get a goodly portion of crap.
How
can this apparent contradiction be resolved? Proponents of
agricultural karma will often use time as a rationalization. They
will claim that just as a seed takes time to fruit, so do the fruits
of your actions take time to ripen. Certainly, this helps. However,
some things in life are still hard to explain.
Why,
for example, do innocent infants die? They've barely had enough time
to learn how to digest food properly, let alone perform some wicked
deed (Of course, we need to leave Stewie from "Family Guy” out
of this equation, as well as the idea of the infant proposed by
famous psychoanalyst Melanie Klein, who viewed it as a viscous and
greedy succubus bent on completely draining the mother of her vital
energy.).
I'm
sure you've already come up with the answer: we must be dealing with
more than one lifetime. In fact, the claim is that we have an
infinite number of lives extending into the past. With this
explanation, all the rewards and atrocities of life fit together like
a skillful game of Tetris. We have an account for why infants die, or
why we can be completely loving and faithful to our partner, only to
end up alone; it's just our karmic comeuppance from cheating in a
previous life.
Sure,
we still might feel unhappy because our partner is now dating a
princess from Bhutan, but at least we can mourn with a sense of ease,
knowing there is some order to events in the universe, and that these
personal painful events are just the fruits of old, bad karma. We can
also rest easy because in the future, we'll also reap the rewards of
our fidelity – it just might take time.
If
we stop here, then all is well.
However,
if we push a little further beyond this logical seal, then we
confront what we call "the administrative nightmare." How
can all those good and bad deeds possibly be kept track of? And not
just in one lifetime, but across infinite lifetimes? What conceivable
cosmic ledger could account for all those transactions? It seems like
an administrative impossibility to coordinate that vast amount of
information and organize events so everything unfolds correctly, and
justice gets served to the right people, at the right time, in just
the right way. The organizational details are so complex that it
leads people to say that karma is some infinitely subtle, ineffable
cosmic order, inaccessible to even the most sophisticated minds.
An
even bigger problem is that, with infinite lifetimes, absolutely
everyone would have enough karma for nearly anything to happen to
them. Put it this way: we all have everything coming.
The
irony is that this view of karma ends up undermining its original
purpose of explaining an individual's unique, personal history.
Even
if we manage to somehow dismiss these logical problems, we're left
with one that chafes at the heart of Buddhism. This view of karma
presupposes an abiding self that's responsible for these events,
whereas the Buddha's central message was the radical proposal that
there is no self (anatta).
The agricultural view of karma rests on there being some sort of
enduring "you" (call it a self, soul, mind-stream, or
whatever) who is responsible for what "you" did in the
past, and a "you" who will benefit or be cursed in the
future.
This
view of karma contributes to acting in self-cherishing,
ego-reinforcing ways. In other words, it supports the very
self-illusion that the Buddha considered the root of our suffering.
Karma
as Intention
What
did the Buddha really mean by karma? The answer is simple: intention
(cetana).
He
said, "Intention, I tell you, is karma. Intending, one does
karma by way of body, speech, and intellect." Defining karma in
this way, the Buddha departed radically from all previous thinking
about karma.
In
the traditional Brahmanical culture of India, karma generally
referred to action. Do good deeds, and the universe will reward you
in turn. But by redefining karma as the intentions behind one's
actions, the Buddha was pointing to a deeper truth: the kinds of
intentions we habitually entertain – whether they're generous and
loving, or selfish and aversive – will determine the kind of mental
space we inhabit. We can't fully control whether our dog runs away,
or whether our partner cheats on us, but we do have a say in what
kind of person meets those events.
Karma
as intention was the central message the Buddha emphasized over and
over. The more any acts of body, speech, or mind are motivated by
poisonous intentions such as greed and hatred, the more toxic we
become, and the more we suffer, no matter what happens to us
externally. The reverse is also true: intentions of compassion and
wisdom shape us into beings with greater patience, who are less
susceptible to suffering, no matter what happens to us externally.
To
put it succinctly: Buddhist karma is not about what happens to you,
but who it happens to.
Yes,
the Wicked can Prosper
The
Buddha's focus on intention rather than actions and external
circumstances allows us to fully acknowledge that the wicked can
prosper, and that selfish behavior can bring a person great fortune
and power. However, the mental state of such a person surrounded by
luxury is a whole different matter. This also means that acting with
compassionate intentions won't magically prevent us from confronting
the slings and arrows of life's misfortune.
But
acting out of wholesome intentions opens up the possibility of
becoming a person who encounters these challenges with less
grumpiness and greater ease. We have exemplars of this possibility in
our great spiritual luminaries, such as the Dalai Lama and Thich Nhat
Hanh. The fruit of their
karma was not the atrocities they were victims of, but the equanimity
and active compassion they show in the face of such extreme
oppression and violence.
So
too, getting sick is not the result of one's bad karma. People grow
old, experience the pain of illness, and eventually die. The Buddha
never said you could plant the right karmic seeds to avoid any of
these. They're simply not optional.
However,
whether or not we suffer when confronted by them is entirely up to
us.
Not
Everything is your Karma
In a
sense, it's true that karma means we reap what we sow. The only
difference is that we're sowing in the furrows of the mind, and less
so in actual fields in the physical world.
That's
not to say our actions don't have consequences. If we go around
smiling at people, we'll likely be smiled at in return. If we go
around slapping people, we're sure to get slapped. Yet, the ultimate
outcome of our behavior is somewhat unpredictable. We could smile at
a stranger, only to have them beat us up in return.
This
unpredictability happens because there are other levels of causality
working in the universe.
Not
everything is our karma.
The
Buddha actually taught about these other levels of causality quite
explicitly in what are called the five Niyamas.
It's worth going through them briefly. Here, we give them a modern
twist.
The
first level of causality is called the Utu Niyama, or the level of
physics and chemistry.
The
second level is known as Bija Niyama, or biological causality. This
new level is necessary because living organisms are more complex than
just their physical and chemical constituents.
Continuing
up the ladder of emergent complexity, we see that some living
organisms have nervous systems and minds, which can't be fully
understood by just looking at the previous two levels of Utu and Bija
Niyama. Therefore, the Buddha talked about the Citta Niyama, or
psychological causality.
Now,
some minds have a more hard-wired relationship with the previous
levels. Take a lizard, for example. It behaves fairly predictably,
based on tight wiring between chemical signals and genetic codes. We
will never train a lizard to fetch a newspaper. Other minds, such as
those of dogs and horses, have greater flexibility. Yet, teaching a
dog to fetch the newspaper depends on an outside stimulus –
specifically, our persistent efforts. The behavior doesn't come
entirely from inside the dog's mind. And in fact, there may be only
one animal on this planet with "self-forming" minds:
humans. For us, we have to identify another level of causality:
karmic or intentional causality, known as the Kamma Niyama.
Kamma
Niyama opens a space for reflexivity, self-organization, and changing
ingrained habits of body, speech, and mind. The preciousness of human
life rests in this potential. Karmic causality, in other words, is a
whole new level of causality in the universe, allowing us the chance
to awaken to the highest level, called Dhamma Niyama, or Ultimate
Reality.
Dhamma
Niyama describes the absolute, indivisible reality, the universe in
its entirety. All divisions from these heights are products of a mind
struggling to grasp the ultimate. We build conceptual models to try
to understand this level, and some models are certainly better than
others. If that weren't the case, the Buddha wouldn't have bothered
teaching. But at this level, all models are equally empty.
To
say that everything is our karma is to usurp this vast spectrum of
causality into a singular, self-centered mind.
When
we realize the complexity we're dealing with, we no longer see events
as a result of karma, but rather as the product of certain physical
causes and conditions. We also no longer fall prey to magical
thinking, believing, for example, that by giving away money and being
nice, we will get money in return and be showered with niceness.
Instead,
we realize that when we replace hatred with compassion, or greed with
generosity, those intentions will shape the type of being we become,
whether rich or poor.
That's
karma.
~ Culadasa and
Matthew Immergut
Editor: Emily Bartran
(Source|Quelle:
Elephant Journal
Transl.|Übers.:
Nicolas von Kospoth)
"Jeder von uns hat seine eigene Vorstellung von Glück. Wegen dieser Vorstellung rennen wir hinter Gegenständen her, die wir begehren. Wir opfern unsere Zeit und zerstören – bis zu einem gewissen Grad – unseren Körper und unseren Geist. Laut Buddha ist [das Erlangen von] Glück einfach: wenn wir heimkehren zum gegenwärtigen Augenblick, erkennen wir, dass wir mehr als genug haben, um gleich hier und jetzt glücklich zu sein. Alle Wunder des Lebens sind in uns und um uns herum. Diese Erkenntnis kann uns dabei helfen, unser Verlangen, unsere Wut und unsere Angst loszulassen."
