II - Karma

So let's now think about the long-term effects of our actions. The word "karma" (in Tibetan, "las") simply means "action". We do something with our body, we say something or we think something. That leaves a trace. The trace is in our mind - where else? As we join in weaving the world together, it is the traces, habits and impressions in our minds that are the fibres of which the world is built. Blue actions, blue traces, blue fibres, we will weave blue canvas. So far, it's terribly simple. However it immediately becomes very complicated, because the canvas is unimaginably large. If our own fibres are blue, they will be twisted across the red and white strands provided by others. Enough of the weaving image - in the long run, it may be our own actions that determine our fate, but the run can indeed be extremely long. Indeed, traditional texts sometimes seem to enjoy boggling the mind with pictures of the length of time involved in these things. In the meantime, we are all subject to the actions of others, and, for that matter, to chance and accident.

Karma misunderstood

You might hear the extreme view that every single thing that happens is the fruition of our past karma. Time for a story...

Albert and John were having a heated discussion about karma. Albert could not accept the doctrine at all. This made John so angry that he punched Albert on the nose. After this, John would have nothing more to do with Albert. His reason was that since Albert had attracted a punch on the nose, Albert's karma must be very bad. Obviously, therefore, Albert was not a good person to mix with. As proof of this, Albert had nearly caused John to accumulate the bad karma of punching someone. This was not quite true, however - it was Albert who karmically caused John to punch him, so the blame for the punch was really Albert's. Albert would have to receive another punch at some time in the future as a consequence.

Applied to real life, and dressed up to look convincing, this kind of silly speculation can in fact be quite pernicious. It results from supposing that "karma" is an external law, mysteriously controlling events and actions from outside. I suggest that such speculations fall away if we see "karma" just as a term for talking about the way the traces of our actions affect the world that we help to create. Perhaps we are indeed drawn to particular events by forces deep in our being, having causes reaching far back into time across lifetimes - personally, I rather think so. But there must also be a lot of things that "just happen that way". Buddhist scripture tells us that the Buddha himself gave a short list of things that could not be figured out. Madness, he thought, would result from trying to do so. The workings of karma was on the list.

Innocent suffering?

This is particularly important when we think about the suffering of the helpless, of the innocent, of children, animals, and so forth. One of the very first points that Buddhism makes is that there is just too much suffering in the world. To say that the cause of all suffering is simply nothing other than the past actions of the individuals involved is abhorrent. Happily, it is again something that can only follow from thinking of karma as an external agent having total control of all everything that happens. This would make it rather like an implacable and merciless God. I have no good explanation for the level of suffering in the world, but I am clear about one thing: that the idea that every single bit of it follows from individually committed past "sins" is nonsense. Innocents do suffer. It is, sadly, so.
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