Karma Explained

[sabaijai]

Karma Explained

Thursday 11th December

Phra Bhasakorn Bhavilai is from Wat Fai Hin, a small monastery on the lower slopes of Doi Suthep and he is considered one of Thailand's foremost academic authorities on kamma. Before he ordained as a monk he worked as a physicist. The book Karma for Today's Traveler is a translation and adaptation of the original Thai version, ผลบุญ คือกำลังชีวิด, The Result of Merit: Life Force, assisted by a longtime foreign resident of Chiang Mai. The book answers a lot of questions about karma that we see regularly here in the Buddhism branch of tv.com.

From the online announcement :

So you think Karma is a tough one? Isn’t it one of the so-called ‘imponderables’ ? Thursday 11th December is your chance to find out.

We have invited Thai Bhikkhu Phra Bhasakorn to talk on karma for us on Thursday 11th. He is a Thai monk, but with more than adequate English. In fact you might see a book of his in English called Karma for Today’s Traveler around bookstores. It is the result of years researching the topic both academically and from the standpoint of practise. Phra Bhasakorn lectures on the topic frequently all over Thailand, and claims that if you can get Karma, then the rest of Buddhist practise unfolds before you.

Karma: For Today’s Traveler

A new look at the Buddhist concept of cause and effect, the dazzling processor we call mind, and the fantastic creative power of human intention.

Free of charge as always. No reservation necessary. If you are free come early and chat in the spacious and quiet coffee shop with other regulars.

Meet and chat 6pm

Sign in 6:30 pm

6:45 start talk, roughly an hour

Q&A till 8:30 pm finish.

Location: Bodhgaya Hall, high up in Amarin Tower, a couple of minutes walk from Chit Lom BTS Station.

[sabaijai]

Free copies of the book will be distributed at the lecture.

[thetravellingcat]

who went? this would have been right up my street. back in cold wet windy freezing England now though.

[camerata]

Here are Phra Cittasamvaro's thoughts on the subject after the talk.

Was Karma Explained?

Karma is probably the most slippery of all the topics in Buddhism. The Buddha himself taught that even the arahants, those with immense psychic powers cannot see the full range and extent of Karma and its operation. But he also included it as part of Right View - the proper outlook that one needs to have before engaging in meditation. This gives karma a unique place in the teaching. You are supposed to accept it on faith.

You are the owner of your karma,

You are the heir to your karma,

born of your karma,

related to your karma,

abide supported by your karma,

whatever karma you shall do,

for good or for ill,

of that you will be the heir.

This should be reflected upon again and again by one who has gone forth [ordained]

Even if you cannot read your past and future karma, the reason it plays such a huge part in Right View (the closest Buddhism comes to a dogma) is so that you are careful of your actions. It is always tempting to feel that some things you can just ‘get away with’. It is always tempting to do the wrong thing just this time. Accepting karma means you are careful with your actions.

The Old Problem

The problem is of course, that people seem to thrive on bad karma, and others, innocents like children in Africa, seem to suffer when not doing anything wrong. The only way this can be justified is to assume previous karma that cannot be seen. It makes a certain kind of sense, even if it is not empirically testable. Thus in our presentation a few days ago, some nifty graphics demonstrated how karma comes hounding us from previous lives that we cannot see. Now we have added a new layer to the problem. Not only do you have to believe in karma, but also in past and future lives.

Can everything be attributed to karma?

In fact three wrong views were listed by the Buddha:

1. Everything arises due to God

2. Everything arises due to chance

3. Everything arises due to karma.

So we cannot really even say what is karma and what is luck. If you are hit by a car tomorrow and injure your leg, is that karma, or luck? (Lets cut the God option from the equation). Some of us feel that karma is your mental training. It might be sheer bad luck that your leg was broken, but the way you have trained yourself, trained your mind, governs what kind of reaction you have to it. Are you accepting, screaming, fighting, blaming forgiving? These reactions, some say, are your karma. This view is supported by a rarely mentioned passage in the Katthavattu, one of the Abhidhamma books that dates from the time of Asoka. It states that karma can only be experienced mentally, not as physical occurrences.

This psychological view is not the mainstream however. Most karma proponents feel that all the things that happen to you are likely to be karma. It gets very complicated then - is the driver karmically driven to break your leg? Are you going to break your leg even if you somehow avoided the car? Who can say. Some suttas do support this kind of karma. For example, if you take many lives in this lifetime, you will be short lived in the next. If you harm beings in this lifetime, you will be sickly in the next. If you are generous in this lifetime, you will be wealthy in the next. What do you think? Is this true or a later addition to the suttas by monks who came a hundred or more years after the Buddha, who were trying to make sense of the teachings?

One of the more mythological claims is that making an offering to a Buddha, an arahant, or a worthy person has more good affect than offering to a common person or a criminal. This seems to be lacking in compassion. But we have to be careful in over rationalising the Buddha’s teachings. It would be nice if everything made sense, but sometimes it does not. So it pays to be clear on what was taught whether you agree with it or not. It is ok to leave parts of the teachings without understanding it all. After all, that is the fun of being on the path.

Verifiable

One of the attractive features of Buddhism is that it should be testable. You are not asked to believe much to get to enlightenment. Karma is one of the things that can be penetrated to in meditation, even if not in its ‘full extent’. The Buddha’s own enlightenment came after three insights :

* Looking through thousands of past lives

* Seeing the karma of beings being born and dying in the realms from heavens to hells

* Seeing and knowing the end of the asavas (=tasting enlightenment)

These three insights are things we are repeatedly told, lie within the scope of deep meditation if you are able to train your mind to that extent. Many people can attain to this; present day included.

The Wrap-up

Karma is one of few things that we are asked to take on trust, until our meditation develops to the point where we can see and know (~naana dassana) for ourselves. This trust is not so much as a belief, but a working hypothesis. The benefit is that such a view helps to govern your behaviour, setting up a favourable mental environment for meditation. Do good, refrain from evil, purify the mind is the summary of the Buddha’s teaching. It seems pretty clear what we are supposed to do, even if it is not possible for the ordinary man to see heavens and hells. Could a belief in God have the same effect? You can’t understand God, but can accept He wants you to behave. Seems similar.

Source: Littlebang.

[phetaroi]

Interesting posting that summarized the lecture.

Taking karma "on faith" is not a problem for me, although I imagine that many would see the "faith" part as being outside normal Buddhist thought.

What I still have a conceptual problem with -- and something I have read about and still don't "buy" -- is the mechanism by which (shall we say) the score is kept. The energy (?) that makes a decision that your karma will result in...whatever. To me, that points to God.

[camerata]

What I still have a conceptual problem with -- and something I have read about and still don't "buy" -- is the mechanism by which (shall we say) the score is kept. The energy (?) that makes a decision that your karma will result in...whatever. To me, that points to God.

I often hear it said (by Western monks) that karma is like the physical laws that govern the universe. In other words, there are laws that control it but we don't understand them. I guess it's like gravity - we know it operates according to some law(s) but we don't know exactly what it is. And most people in the world seem to think that the physical laws of the universe point to God.

The problem I have with this explanation is that it isn't hard to see how physical laws control matter and energy, but it's very hard to see how a naturally evolving law could determine the results of moral actions (mainly of one particular species of sentient being). And then there's the problem of what happens to all beings in the physical realms between the end of one "world system" and the beginning of the next. The Pali Canon explanation is pretty dodgy.

[camerata]

Here are Phra Cittasamvaro's thoughts on the subject after the talk.

So we cannot really even say what is karma and what is luck. If you are hit by a car tomorrow and injure your leg, is that karma, or luck? (Lets cut the God option from the equation). Some of us feel that karma is your mental training. It might be sheer bad luck that your leg was broken, but the way you have trained yourself, trained your mind, governs what kind of reaction you have to it. Are you accepting, screaming, fighting, blaming forgiving? These reactions, some say, are your karma. This view is supported by a rarely mentioned passage in the Katthavattu, one of the Abhidhamma books that dates from the time of Asoka. It states that karma can only be experienced mentally, not as physical occurrences.

The point he doesn't mention here is that while the view that "karma can only be experienced mentally" might not be supportable, it's the one aspect of karma that can be seen and tested in the current life. Perhaps it isn't the whole story on karma, but it's a significant part of it.

[fabianfred]

And then there's the problem of what happens to all beings in the physical realms between the end of one "world system" and the beginning of the next. The Pali Canon explanation is pretty dodgy.

before the destruction of the world, the heaven and hel_l realms etc. are also destroyed...so all beings exist in the highest realms of no form...until the next aeon reaches the point where the new earth is habitable and new realms form again....thence beings are again reborn according to their karma.

[phetaroi]

And then there's the problem of what happens to all beings in the physical realms between the end of one "world system" and the beginning of the next. The Pali Canon explanation is pretty dodgy.

before the destruction of the world, the heaven and hel_l realms etc. are also destroyed...so all beings exist in the highest realms of no form...until the next aeon reaches the point where the new earth is habitable and new realms form again....thence beings are again reborn according to their karma.

Hmmmmmmmmmm. Now I know you are much further along in your studies than I. Who says this? Who could know? It could not be from someone who has passed into nirvanna since they cannot communicate with us.

[jts-khorat]

The problem is of course, that people seem to thrive on bad karma, and others, innocents like children in Africa, seem to suffer when not doing anything wrong. The only way this can be justified is to assume previous karma that cannot be seen. It makes a certain kind of sense, even if it is not empirically testable. Thus in our presentation a few days ago, some nifty graphics demonstrated how karma comes hounding us from previous lives that we cannot see. Now we have added a new layer to the problem. Not only do you have to believe in karma, but also in past and future lives.

The rebirth problem irritated me a long time, until I read not so long ago a version that seemed much more plausible to me: as self is an illusion, it is not actually you that is reborn. What is reborn is another entity that might carry many or just some of your traits (including your karma), but not identical to you.

The picture was, that it is like a pool ball shot against another one: the first ball will come to a stop, passing his energy (karma) to the second ball which will roll in the direction if the first one, but being not identical to it in any other way than that.

[jts-khorat]

And then there's the problem of what happens to all beings in the physical realms between the end of one "world system" and the beginning of the next. The Pali Canon explanation is pretty dodgy.

before the destruction of the world, the heaven and hel_l realms etc. are also destroyed...so all beings exist in the highest realms of no form...until the next aeon reaches the point where the new earth is habitable and new realms form again....thence beings are again reborn according to their karma.

Hmmmmmmmmmm. Now I know you are much further along in your studies than I. Who says this? Who could know? It could not be from someone who has passed into nirvanna since they cannot communicate with us.

It seems the Buddha himself told us so; see the quote below from wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddhist_cosmology

No single sūtra sets out the entire structure of the universe. However, in several sūtras the Buddha describes other worlds and states of being, and other sūtras describe the origin and destruction of the universe.

[...]

The destruction by fire is the normal type of destruction that occurs at the end of the Saṃvartakalpa. But every eighth mahākalpa, after seven destructions by fire, there is a destruction by water. This is more devastating, as it eliminates not just the Brahma worlds but also the Ābhāsvara worlds.

Every sixty-fourth mahākalpa, after 56 destructions by fire and 7 destructions by water, there is a destruction by wind. This is the most devastating of all, as it also destroys the Śubhakṛtsna worlds. The higher worlds are never destroyed.

[momosan]

A bit all too mystic for me. My version of karma is summed up pretty nicely in the first paragraphs of the wikipedia entry for it:

Karma (Sanskrit: कर्म Karma.ogg kárma (help·info), kárman- "act, action, performance"[1]; Pali: kamma) is the concept of "action" or "deed" in Indian religions understood as that which causes the entire cycle of cause and effect (i.e., the cycle called saṃsāra) originating in ancient India and treated in Hindu, Jain, Sikh and Buddhist philosophies.

In these systems, the effects of all deeds are viewed as actively shaping past, present, and future experiences. The results or 'fruits' of actions are called karma-phala.

I don't believe in the reincarnation and past lives stuff. Our actions and the actions of those around us and their resulting influence is the core of what I believe to be karma. And it's all in this life baby

[rockyysdt]

I don't believe in the reincarnation and past lives stuff. Our actions and the actions of those around us and their resulting influence is the core of what I believe to be karma. And it's all in this life baby

Isn't it theoretical either way without "actual experience"?

if you feel " it's all in this life baby ", & that very few attain enlightenment in their lifetime, even with dedicated practice, is the lifelong abstinence & effort involved worthwhile?

The Buddha spoke of two identities: "conditioned & finite" & "unconditioned & infinite".

Isn't enlightenment the "conditioned & finite" state becoming consciousness of the "unconditioned & infinite", which was always there but hidden under the veils?

If there is an "unconditioned & infinite" state then why can't khamma involve past & future lives?

If there isn't, then why all the drama?

Edited April 29, 2009 by rockyysdt

[momosan]

if you feel " it's all in this life baby ", & that very few attain enlightenment in their lifetime, even with dedicated practice, is the lifelong abstinence & effort involved worthwhile?

The Buddha spoke of two identities: "conditioned & finite" & "unconditioned & infinite".

Isn't enlightenment the "conditioned & finite" state becoming consciousness of the "unconditioned & infinite", which was always there but hidden under the veils?

If there is an "unconditioned & infinite" state then why can't khamma involve past & future lives?

If there isn't, then why all the drama?

I do believe one can attain enlightenment in their lifetime. As for past-future lives I believe karma from past lives can affect the lives of those in the future. Once you're dead it's all gone but your actions if they're powerful enough will have a rippling effect for some time to come.

Why the drama? (This is just my silly view ) If you're locked in a cell with the key that would release you from your prison would you not use that key(wisdom) to release yourself and free yourself from the cycle of suffering that you would experience day after day in that cell? And once free from your cell would you then not use your new found wisdom to attempt to free those you see suffering around you from their cells as well? Most of us are here for a very long time as is the nature of existence, so we should make the best of it. Here and now, the past is gone and cannot be changed the future cannot be predicted so live as best you can with your mind clear and your stores of wisdom stocked up.

Edited April 29, 2009 by momosan