Karmic Debts
Friday, July 24, 2009 at 09:26PM According to the Buddhist principle of Karma, at least as traditionally understood, we experience a life that is commensurate with our past acts; we reap what we have sown in past lives. In recent days, I have been reflecting upon what my experience of the world is like and – in particular – my experience of other people. Overwhelmingly, this experience is characterised by friendliness, helpfulness, and generosity. Only very rarely does anyone ever speak to me in a harsh way and almost never without some foundation. So does this then mean that I must have lived an exemplary life or series of lives before this one? Maybe so.
At the same time (and completely contrary to the state of affairs I have just described), my experience of life is of constantly being on edge – as though I were standing vigil in case of potential attack. Deeply held within me, it seems, is an expectation that something bad will happen, that I must be on my guard, even while what I actually experience is a great deal of warmth and helpfulness. Maybe this is a result of my bad karma.
When I reflect on my early life – particularly my teenage years – I did so many unethical things and caused suffering to a number of people close to me. Yet my karma does not appear to be that people now wish me harm; it is the opposite, people seem overwhelmingly to have my best interests at heart. This is both humbling and heartening. The heavy burden that I do carry, however, is the remembrance of harsh things that I have said, of cruel things that I have done. Don’t get me wrong, I haven’t killed anybody, but I have a reservoir of painful memories that from time to time surface to disturb my peace. This seems to me the lasting karmic legacy, even while it is largely hidden from view.
To think of Karma in terms of external events conspiring to frustrate and even ‘punish’ us seems to me a little fanciful; it is the habits we have formed, the memories we must bear, the opportunities that we missed, the apologies we didn’t make, and the thanks we failed to give that are perhaps our heaviest karmic burdens. And so, even while we may inhabit a world of friendship and generosity, our samskaras (volitional habits) prevent us from fully enjoying the blessings we constantly receive.
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Reader Comments (3)
Bearing in mind that the Buddha reportedly said that speculating on the workings of karma was one of the things that could drive you loopy (I'm paraphrasing somewhat)...
I'm stuck by how often in the Pali canon the Buddha encourages the development of companionship with people who are skillful, and to avoid companionship with those who are not, and I suppose to the extent that you have actively chosen to steer clear of aggressive people and to associate with friendly, helpful, and generous people, then that would be pretty clearly karmic. Or so I would think.
I used to strongly share your sense of being on edge, waiting for the attack to come. I've found that I'm much less prone to that these days. The thing that I think made a big difference for me was realizing that I was very dependent on approval from others. The corollary of that of course is that I tended to be very sensitive to the disapproval of others -- and so I often found myself anticipating that disapproval. What I did was to make a decision that I needed to become my own source of validation. I realized that I was dependent on others appreciating what I did because I didn't sufficiently appreciate the things I did -- or indeed myself. A few years down the line, I find I'm much less prone to assume that others are about to disapprove or be critical of things I've done. And I definitely think that all that is karma: the whole business of realizing how i was creating unpleasant experiences for myself and deciding to do something differently.
For me I don't think it was to do with previous unskillful acts -- the karmic activity was all very much on the fly. And I wonder if that's another myth about karma: that it's mainly to do with stuff from long ago. I'm sure some of it is -- in origin at least -- but perhaps more of it is to do with what we're doing right now.
And I suspect you're right that karma works mostly internally...
Thanks for your very thoughtful comments there Bodhipaksa. I endorse what you said about much of our karmic legacy being more immediate. Most often when something good/bad happens it is quite easy to trace the source back to something within the fairly immediate future. We need not be thinking of past lives to understand mostly why we have ended up as we are.
Yes, the conceit of 'self' runs very deep - at least in my own case - wanting approval, fearing disapproval. The strange thing is - and I have been reflecting on this - that while I want people to appreciate me, when they actually do it doesn't seem to make very much difference to how I feel, at least not often! I clearly need to take a leaf out of your book here and thanks for your thoughts.
Hello and thanks for this blog post.
This is perhaps a slight tangent to the spirit of your blog post but I've had this question about karma that I haven't been able to get to the bottom of so I hope it's OK to ask you this here:
It seems to me that the traditional take on karma is underpinned by a belief that ethical actions affect the physical world in a profoundly concrete way. For example, if someone is hit by a falling branch their ethical actions in the past have somehow caused this.
Am I right in thinking that the traditional take on karma posits this link between ethical actions and the physical world? If so, do you know if there has ever been any attempt to explain exactly how the mechanism might work (am thinking maybe in the field of philosophy or, of course, science)?
By the way, I'm aware that there are other ways of understanding karma & I've read a little bit about the nyamas (spelling?). It's just that I've felt like this question about the link between eithical actions and the physical world still creates a tension in my chest and suspicion in my mind!
Kathy