What is karma?

I’ve grown up hearing this word, karma, especially when I go to yoga studios or talk to some of my more spiritual friends.  I have some sense of it, but what does it mean in Zen?

Karma comes from the Sanskrit word for action, but in the older texts, it’s usually paired with the word, phala, or effect.  So karma basically means cause-and-effect.  A mango tree is the result of planting a seed and taking care of it over many years.  Even in this example, though, the relationship in the real world’s a lot more complex and unpredictable than the plant-a-seed-get-a-tree analogy implies.  A mango tree isn’t just the result of me planting the seed and looking after it.  It’s the result of the weather, insects, soil quality, my gardener not cutting it down on accident as he’s done - dozens - of times.  The more time that passes, the more tenuous and complex the relationship between the action and result becomes.  And so much of what comes affects the result, like the case of my gardener chopping it down on accident, is unpredictable.

But why does my Buddhist friend, Kyu, say things like, “You got into that accident because when you were a teen, you hit that car and sped off without ever covering the cost of damages.  It’s your bad karma coming back to.”  This implies that there’s a moral order to the universe, that there’s some secret book keeper who makes sure, at the end of the day, that every good deed is rewarded and every bad deed punished, right?

There’s some truth to that.  The old school Buddhist view is just as you said.  For every action, there’s an equal reaction.  The linking of the word phala, or fruit, is intentional.  In the old school, moralistic sense, it means that if you stole someone’s iPhone in high school, eventually, maybe in five years or twenty years or five lifetimes, that bad action will come back to you.  It might not be an iPhone that’s stolen, but someone will steal something from you somehow.  All the details might not be exact, but something similar will inevitably come back to you.
Can I purify those bad deeds so they don’t come back to bite me in the future?
Traditionally, no.  The Buddha said karma’s like someone throwing a frying pan into the river and asking, pleading, praying for it to rise back to the surface afterwards.  Nope.  That pan’s sinking.  The action’s been done and, despite our protests or wishes otherwise, any evil action will be repaid with another in some unknown time in the future.  There are a lot of rituals and spells to try to expiate the guilt of wrongdoing and avoid the hammering that it’ll bring down, but that doesn’t work.

The harsh, inflexible reality of causality’s a tough pill to swallow so a lot of Buddhist culture has grown up around selling purity.  Indulgences, you know, aren’t just a Catholic thing.  There are special mantras to chant, sutras to recite, or even good deeds which you can do to “purify” bad actions and spare oneself.  Much of it is magical in nature because it’s a lot easier to pay someone a small chunk of money than it is to go out and do good or, heaven forbid, actually purify one’s own mind.  This offers more comfort than knowing that you’re gonna be nickeled-and-dimed for every indiscretion you’ve ever committed from beginningless time.  But the truth doesn’t care about our feelings, unfortunately.  It’s the way it is.

But you said traditionally.  So does that mean people now don’t believe that?

Some believe, others don’t.  I don’t believe in karma in that way.  I see it differently.

How do you see it?

First, let me clarify the two types of karma and then I’ll point out where I depart from tradition.  There’s immediate and long karma.  Immediate karma is the immediate change that takes place as a result of an action both physically and mentally.  For example, if I’m feeling generous and decide to send a thousand dollars to the Red Cross to help out the victims of flooding in Pakistan, the immediate physical result is that there’s a thousand more dollars in the Red Cross’s bank account.  Whether that money will ever find its way to some Pakistani villagers whose home’s been destroyed and is on the verge of starvation, though, is uncertain.  Mentally, the immediate result is that I strengthen generosity, compassion towards others, and my connection to that organization.
Immediate karma is the principle upon which the four areas of development depend upon.  

If you sit down and meditate every day, you’re changing your mind by continually bringing it back to the object of focus and letting go of all of the concerns and wishes that usually drag you about during your daily life.  You’re strengthening, moment-by-moment, that ability of your mind to stay focused.  If you’re generous and kind towards others, that also has an immediate result of strengthening generosity and kindness within yourself.  If it wasn’t for the truth of cause-and-effect, then none of your efforts would be meaningful.  And while that may seem absurd to us today, that’s not always been the case.  In the Buddha’s time, some schools denied cause-and-effect and even some later Buddhist schools skirted the issue with supernatural beings that could determine one’s fate.

Returning to karma, though, there’s one key difference between physical and mental karma.  Physical karma doesn’t care about what you’re thinking when you do it. If you run everyday and are mostly daydreaming, focused on your breathing, or listening to a podcast, as long as you get your heart rate up and cover the distance, you’re getting more fit.  If you’re training in football, for example, and doing drills, it doesn’t matter physically if you’re doing it because you’re selfish and want to crush your competition or if you’re doing it to raise money to cover your ailing mother’s medical fees.  If you look at some of the top athletes in the world, Jon Jones, Christiano Rinaldo, or LeBron James, some commentators say that “success got to to their heads.”  I don’t see it that way.  These guys were always studs and that insatiable craving to be number one is one and the spotlight it brings is one of the reasons they’re at the top.  So it’s no surprise players like this are so arrogant: that’s been one of the big drivers of theirs for years, if not decades. Physically, whether it’s Jon Jones wanting that #1 spot or a more humble George St. Pierre working from a sense of love of the sport, the results are the same.

Mental karma, on the other hand, is determined entirely by your mental state when you act.  If you’re meditating because you want to be someone special, that’s going to strengthen the self-centeredness at the root of that desire.  If you’re meditating because you want to avoid depression, that’s going to strengthen that fear of depression.  If you’re meditating to attain nirvana, then that’s going to strengthen that desire for nirvana.  Likewise, if you’re speaking kindly to another person but internally you’re manipulative, selfish, and cruel, even if no one else knows how deceitful you are behind those words, speaking in such a way will strengthen that selfishness and cruelty within you.  But, as in the case of meditation, there’s an imperfect relationship between intentions and results both mentally and physically.

Take the case of going on a 5 am run.  Most people drag themselves out of bed and force themselves outside and onto the track or street for their daily jog.  It’s often not a nice feeling.  They’re grumpy, quietly cursing themselves, and stubborn.  The big thing that gets them out of bed each morning is the fear of being a fatty.  Each time they drag themselves out of bed, they’re strengthening that fear.  However, there’s something more going on.  As they start running, they might let go of the fear and find themselves pleasantly enjoying the run as-it-is.  Mid-way, they might want to keep going for the sheer thrill of it rather than fear.  Over just an hour long run, the intention changed from fear to enjoyment.  And if they keep doing it, again-and-again, they might start to love jogging itself, rather than forcing themselves to do it to stay fit.  The same is true of meditation.

Everyone drags themselves to the cushion for some reason or another.  Some want to get enlightened.  Others just want to stave off the unpleasantness of the stress they contend with daily.  Others just do it out of habit.  But as you do it, something shifts.  Some intentions are dropped.  Other intentions arise.  And those might eventually win out and allow love, generosity, and serenity to gradually replace fear, anxiety, and craving.  That’s why you can meditate on koans with all of these selfish wishes and hopes and end-up enlightened.

And what’s the long karma?

In traditional terms, long karma is the karma that says if you steal a hundred dollars from me, you’re going to lose something somewhat equivalent at some point in the future.  Doesn’t work quite like that, but that’s the basic principle.  That’s one way of looking at it.  Another way of looking at long karma is that you make the future world you’ll inhabit.  If you’re being upright and generous now, you’re making a more upright and generous world for your future self, even the one beyond this life, will eventually inhabit.

So you believe in future lives?

Yes and no.  I look at it this way: do you believe that you’ll still be alive in five days?

I hope so.

And do you act differently knowing that you’ll be alive then?

Of course.

And what about in ten years?

Most likely, I’ll still be kicking it.

So are you saving for retirement?

Yes.  It actually freaks me out a bit when I think it over.  Not sure if I’ll have enough money.

Congratulations, you believe in a future self.

Yes, 100%.

But if you accept oneness as fundamental to life, then you also have to accept that there’s not a hard distinction between who you are and who your parents, wife, children, friends, colleagues, and fellow citizens are.  Who you are is porous, rather than being limited to the narrow confines of what’s within your skinbag.  This recognition’s at the heart of compassion.  Compassion isn’t some silly lie told to keep people good.  It’s actually a reflection of the truth that, on one level, there’s no difference between you and others.  You are others.  They are you.  So, therefore, helping others is helping yourself and helping yourself is helping others.
Therefore, even after your body-and-mind perishes, you’ll still live on.  You’ll live on in your children.  You’ll live on in your brothers and sisters.  You’ll live on in your colleagues and close friends.  You’ll live on in the organizations you supported and the lives you’ve touched.  And they’ll live on through their own children, family, and friends.  So if you wreck the world, you’re creating a crappier future for yourself.  Likewise, if you awesomify the world - a technical Zen term, I assure you, you’re setting your future self up for more awesomeness.

Going back to retirement savings, it’s not unthinkable to act on behalf of your future self.  But instead of thinking of our future self as extending only until the age of 75 or 76 when we finally kick the bucket, think of yourself as a more porous being.  Think of yourself, on one level, living out and through your family and friends now and into the future.  See that life never truly ends and that, in the end, we’re forced to reckon with the consequences of our actions.  All of this, though, is basically saying: don’t be a jerk.  It’s gonna come back to you one way or another.