The 18th Dharma Session of Middle Way Buddhist Association: Karma

The 18th Dharma session under the aegis of Middle Way Buddhist Association started off on Aug 18, 2008 as usual with meditation. The Dharma teacher of the day was again Bhante Upananda, who instructed the attendees to breathe in joy and to breathe out pent-up emotions as a release, letting go of worldly attachments.

The ensuing Dharma talk focused on Karma, a popular and yet confusing and poorly understood notion in Buddhism. Broadly, the universal attitude on Karma can be grouped as follows:

A) Karmic perspective
1) Slave to Karma
2) Master of Karma (mutual creation)

B) Non-karmic perspective
1. Efforts (everyday attitude) versus Karma (doctrinal treatment)

Bhante explained that while he was born and raised as a Buddhist, and hence is considered a cultural insider of Buddhism, he has tried to become an outsider to better understand the thinking of those who are not like him. He further asserted that nobody is an absolute of any of the three above, but one is considered on a case by case basis, i.e., everyday life is the inter-balance among the three. When one is too much into Karma (reality), a state termed as karmic downturn, then efforts are reduced.

He went on to relate a dialog between the Buddha and a Brahmin, who was a businessman though of the priestly caste. The Brahmin asked, “Would Karma come out and help me?” The Buddha replied, “If one's life is totally governed by Karma, don't give up your efforts.” Because efforts would re-enhance karmic energy.

On Efforts versus Fate/Fortune, which the uninitiated would tend to liken the latter to Karma, the advice is to rely on Karma as a last resort. While Buddhism fundamentally rejects fate, linguistically it seems reasonable to refer to Karma as fate or destiny in popular parlance.

While the notion of Karma in Hinduism is deterministic, the Buddhist view eschews fatalism [as embodied in the popular belief that everything that happens comes to pass according to a predetermined pattern and that we have little scope to change the course of events] and determinism. The two parallel tracks of Efforts and Karma can merge.

Going back to its definition, Bhante stated that Karma is volition (or intention as intoned by Wahula Rapola as informed by Brother Tom). A more popular definition is perhaps action, or coming into being of a certain force created by an actor (verbal, mental, physical). In the latter sense, it is karmic energy. Here action includes mental imprint as well, even before physical manifestation. For anyone seemingly caught in a karmic cycle/retribution, one remedy is to do something else, an advice often dispensed in prison counseling.

Buddhism does not agree largely with the concept of confession, but rather views the “counseling” as more like sharing to get a big relief/burden off, but the guilt stays. While there may not be a parallel to the western world view of sin atonement, resolution matters in Buddhism as reflected in a frequent word used in Sutras: Cariyahukulata. The prefix, Cari, means behavior, while the second part, to watch for. It's moral elevation.

Bhante proceeded to expound on the four categories of intra-karmic functionality (battles among Karma) as follows:

1. Generative Karma: This is a predominant/mainstream category. At the point of dying, all mental functions are reduced to the microchip where all projections stop and the loss of identity is complete. Then the microchip opens up again, erupting into millions of karmic seeds (inner big bang).

2. Supportive Karma: This is in the same camp as (1) but in a feeder role.

At this point, Bhante quoted Randy Pausch, the terminally ill patient of pancreative cancer who had become an Internet celebrity because of his Last Lecture but who succumbed recently, “Let the Karma take care of that and let me finish my mission!” That's a good exemplar of the attitude exhorted by King Kosala (a friend of the Buddha), “Don't blame on your Karma.”

Also, (1) and (2) lead to the phenomenon that the rich becomes richer, ushering in the notion of social/collective Karma.

3. Obstructive Karma that impedes (1); and

4. Destructive Karma that destroys totally/kills (1).

Bhante ended this most intriguing Dharma session by referring to King Bimbisara, another friend of the Buddha, who stated the two domains of legal prosecution and moral elevation in karmic affairs. Obviously, I did not quite grasp the message therein but surmised that perhaps our behavior can be guided by either legal prosecution, an externally imposed restraint, or moral elevation, an intrinsic propensity to do good, and in karmic terms, it's preferable to be governed by the latter.

Here I would like to end this brief account with an excerpt from the online article, Destiny and Free Will:

“Karma predestines nothing and no one. We, by our actions, create causes and feel the effects of those causes which are our teachers. Our spiritual progress is possible only by self-effort. We must assume responsibility for our actions and not try to evade it by religious sacrifices and ceremonies. When King Bimbisara was about to sacrifice a goat in a religious ceremony, with the priests invoking the gods to transfer all the sins of the king on to the poor, innocent, helpless animal, the Buddha intervened and counseled the king to stop the inhuman, superstitious practice. He spoke to the congregation about

The fixed arithmetic of the universe,
Which meteth good for good and ill for ill,
Measure for measure, unto deeds, words, thoughts;
Watchful, aware, implacable, unmoved;
Making all futures fruits of all the pasts.

Help, assistance and enlightenment will come to us in this Great Journey only if we strive towards the enlightenment and emancipation of all, and when we deserve and merit such help by our actions. Far from being fatalism, Karma places in our hands our own evolution. By knowledge of this Law of our being and of the essential and real oneness of all beings, we have to learn to act in harmony with Nature for the general weal and progress of all. It is only through knowledge of the Karmic Law in all its ramifications that man may fulfill his Karmic destiny.”

In a nutshell, past karma leads to present results; present karma leads to future results.

The 12th Dharma Session of Middle Way Buddhist Association: Karma & Causality

One of the three unthinkable subjects in Buddhism (an assertion that Bhante Dhammawansha has repeatedly told in his Dharma talks that I have attended) relates to the immutable notion of Cause and Effect. Variously known as the Principle (some have used the more forceful term, Doctrine) of Causality, Conditioned Arising, Dependent Origination, Dependent Co-Arising, and the related widely popular Karma, the original Sanskrit term that has been absorbed into the English lexicon, which is simply translated as Action, the notion encompasses the ramifications implied in many of our common sayings such as “you reap what you sow,” “crime does not pay,” and much more since its payback, in the present-day parlance, is not restricted to the present life, but over the so-called Three Life Interpretation (see Figure below).

A concomitant belief is Rebirth, which I personally prefer over another oft-used term, Reincarnation. Both beliefs predate Buddhism but have become two of the central tenets in Buddhism and are inseparable in the sense that denying one makes it that much harder to accept the other. Both constitute a huge mental block for lay believers as empirical evidence of their manifestation in our daily life within the lifespan as we know it is indeed far and between. Living counter proofs abound: rampant poverty and other social scourges, the bad guys got off scot-free while the good guys, victimized. Even those who have taken the Three Refuges may still harbor reservations as amply blogged here.

This apparent incongruence that may seem to require a leap of faith, a rather stupendous one at that, to bridge was explored in the 12th Dharma Session of the Middle Way Buddhist Association held yesterday (Jan 19, 2008) at its Pinellas Park venue, led by Bhante Dhammawansha.

As usual, the session started with sitting meditation, each attendee electing to sit cross-legged on a cushion or on a chair in accordance with personal preferences and perhaps the dictates of physical condition peculiar to each. I assumed my position on a chair and tried to lose myself in mental liberation from random thoughts.

Even though I have several such feats under my belt accumulated since day one (March, 2007) of the formation of MWBA, my mind was still drifting in and out of brief clarity (the tick-tocking of the wall clock was all I heard, and actually counted), and what seemed like an eternity of muddled state where different sounds/noises vied for my attention, from which I was awakened, thanks to gravity, by my body sensing an imminent forward lurching motion (or was it all in the mind?), a warning that the mind was heading toward stupor thus losing control over the body. Anway, I was relieved when Bhante's calm voice came into my consciousness, signifying the end of yet another tussle in the on-going saga of my journey on the path of meditation.

Bhante started the Dharma talk by observing that we don't like to take responsibility. We deem gifts from others as ours, even borrowed ones. But once they are broken, they are no longer ours. This refusal to take responsibility runs counter to the very fabric of causality that every action begets a reaction as embodied in the law of physics governing Nature, and has consequences in human interaction.

However, these consequences will only manifest when the conditions are conducive, or ripe. For example, our presence here in the morning was the convergence of many conditions: Tom organized, the venue was available, Bhante was committed to lead, and the attendees were informed and made the trip through the foggy weather. Thus, Buddhism denies that an action is the result of one condition alone being fulfilled. A simple illustration to understand the concept of dependent origination is the system of English alphabets where B comes after A, C comes after B and so on. If there is no B, then there is no A, and so on.

The Buddha rejected three reasons offered to explain why something happened:
a) previous karma;
b) external agencies/controller;
c) no reason.

In the Buddha's teaching, the Noble 8-Fold Paths, a mainstay of the Middle Way, serve to exemplify the working of the cause and effect:

First we must have the right view/understanding. Then we will have the right thought, the right speech, the right action, the right livelihood, the eight effort, the right mindfulness, and the right concentration in that order. To bring out the human wisdom, we need to search, experiment, and investigate, step by step. It's like reaching for the light from the dark, slowly seeing the light for ourselves as we journey as per the admonishment from the Buddha for self verification, i.e., do not believe because He said it, because of fear, and because of scriptures. Indeed, this rejection of blind faith has continued to be echoed by such scientific luminaries as Sir Issac Newton, “In the fight between truth and untruth, truth always prevails,” and Sir Julian Huxley, a 20th century English biologist and humanist, “No reason to believe anything without experimentation.”

Bhante then went ahead to put in words the causal relationships (the twelve links) that lead to our suffering, starting from our body to the ultimate source: ignorance. Rather than transcribing verbatim what Bhante had explained, I found a graphical representation here that could perhaps illustrate the linkages in the same way, but entailing the three life interpretation as an amplification. Thus, it is said that ignorance is the greatest rust, while wisdom is the greatest gem.

Conditioned Arising - The Standard Model as applied to the Second Ennobling Truth (Fig. 1 taken from here. There is also a disclaimer in the source that "the above diagram is not a strictly accurate depiction of the 3 lives view." Click on the figure for an enlarged view.

A notable feature of the above figure is the cyclical process. Thus, life in Buddhism is viewed as an endless cycle of birth and rebirth with no beginning and no end, the wheel of samsara. And the ultimate liberation lies in getting out of the samsara through enlightenment. We can experience such a cycle in our daily life as well, a prime example of which is the hydrological cycle that traces out the path of water, for example, in the mighty Mississippi River.

In karmic terms, some may view the 2004 South Asian tsunami catastrophe as a contradiction. Then there are quarters who attributed the carnage to the absence of faith in God. However, in the worldview of Buddhism, the event is a natural phenomenon spawned by an imbalance in the four elements that constitute the world: water, fire, earth, and air.

The confusion arises from our inability to separate culture and religion, often seeing the world through lenses that are colored by our prejudices and obfuscated by layers of ignorance. Therefore, the Buddha exhorted us to go deeper to understand reality and as such, He had devised many ways to help put ourselves on the path to enlightenment, as befitting his exemplary role as a great physician for mental diseases.

In the interaction that followed during the vegetarian lunch, I was given an idea for my next reading project in trying to better understand how Buddhism that professes no self would be able to reconcile with the notion of individuality that is so deeply ingrained in the western ethos: Buddhism without Beliefs by Stephen Batchelor. Thanks, Olivier.