Some people may have felt put off when I posted all those articles
on karma and rebirth a couple of months ago in the Nichiren Shu Yahoo group and which is still in the file section of that group. They complained that
this material from the Pali Canon was too academic or complex or too
tied in with provisional Budhdism or the historical Buddha that
supposedly we don't need to care about. But the fact is that the
Lotus Sutra itself assumes that we already know about the Buddha's
teachings of karma. In fact, the Mahayana sutras in general assume
this knowledge and perspective on the part of the reader. They
assume that their readers have already properly digested the
material that can be found in the Pali Canon. But in fact many drawn
to the Mahayana and the Lotus Sutra do not know this material and so
make assumptions that the Hollywood Buddhist make - and Hollywood
Buddhism is not the Buddhism that the Buddha taught.
Nichiren taught a good standard for judging whether a teaching is
authentically Buddhist:
1. What do the sutras that are our only source for what the Buddha
taught actually say?
2. Is the teaching in accordance with reason?
3. Most importantly, how does the teaching play out in real life?
Does it bring liberation? Does it point to things we can verify for
ourselves if we make the effort?
If we want to know what Buddhism actually teaches about karma we
need to go to the Pali Canon. Nichiren alludes to these teachings in
his letters by referencing T'ien-t'ai's teaching but doesn't go into
detail, and the T'ien-t'ai sources have not been translated and in
any case reference back to the sutras. As Nichiren himself said, why
should one choose commentaries (this would include the gosho too)
over the sutras anyway?
So what do we find in the Nikayas?
We find that the Buddha repeatedly taught that we should not presume
to judge anothers karma or even our own. He even said that one could
go mad trying to figure it out by speculating. He repeatedly said
that karma is only one strand of causality - and that the laws of
cause and effect pertaining to inanimate processes, biological
processes, non-volitional mental processes, and the general Dharmic
unfolding of life must also be taken into account. Not everything
can be reduced to the karmic portion of cause and effect. The Buddha
also taught that we cannot even judge whether a good or bad effect
can be traceable back to any good or bad causes in this life that we
can observe. The true causes may be imperceivable or from a life or
many lifetimes ago.
I posted all of that material exactly because of how the Hollywood
version of karma and Buddhism has been assumed by too many for too
long to an embarassing and even callous degree. I posted it as a
medicine and innoculation.
So what Sharon Stone said may have been on many people's minds. I
also wondered about the karmic connection between the actions of the
Burmese military and the Chinese government and the disasters that
befell their countries within mere weeks of their violent
persecutions of Buddhist monks. But then I remembered the Buddha's
warnings against such presumptuous judgement. I recalled that I am
morally repelled by any religious dogmas that "blame the victim." I
observed that it wasn't the government or military that were hurt in
either case but the common people who had been innocent of
wrongdoing in the first place.
I observed that the exacerbation of the disasters were in fact due
to causes made by those governments - but there was no observable
direct causal connections between their abuse of Buddhist clergy and
the horrible tragedies that befell hundreds of thousands of innocent
people. Those government are culpable due to their negligence of the
common people and even outright oppression of them - and their
treatment of Buddhists is part and parcel of that. If they had
treated their own people with care and respect they would not have
been at loggerheads with the Buddhist community, and they would be
the types of governments that would ensure ample warnings of
flooding, would ensure proper building codes and standards, would
ensure that help got to the people who needed it when they needed
it. So in general the types of governments you find in China and
Burma are the types that makes causes that exacerbate tragedies for
those nations - particularly among those who are already in poverty
and oppressed. This is to assign blame where blame can be assigned.
It is to point out actual observable causal connections. But it is
not to blithely say "all those people died because they mistreated
Buddhism" which is to blame the victim and isn't even accurate and
is not in fact even in accord with what the Buddha actually taught
about the complexities of karma and the law of causality in general.
Namu Myoho Renge Kyo,
Ryuei
Hi, Michael and thanks for this. I agree that Sharon Stone comes perilously close to Pat Robertson in a way -- I hate to see that happening to Buddhism.
Can you tell me what books I can purchase which have the material about not judging someone else's karma (or even our own?) I'd like to read that for myself - it's kind of a relief, actually. I'm free to just practice generosity or lovingkindness without having to double-guess the effects on me or on the recipient.
Thanks for the thoughtful post,
Wahzoh
Posted by: Byrd in LA at May 31, 2008 10:57 AMI got a lot out of the material at the Nichiren Shu yahoo group. I used it to respond ro a request elsewhere, about luck. Someone wrote: "Please tell the importance/role of luck & spirituality in our lives and how it affects us in daily lives."
Answer: There is actually no luck, only causality. However, karma is not the whole of causality. Causality evidently includes 5 processes; one of which is karma. The others are heredity, will power, the laws of physics, and climate. From what I understand; the Buddha makes allusion to these five processes, called niyama or "causes &
conditions" in the Nikayas / Suttas; while they are specifically discussed in commentaries.
Will power is a translation of citta-niyama. Citta is one of several terms for mind. The Japanese translation is the kokoro shin. This is the kanji that looks like a smiley face, the crescent moon and three stars. This is generally seen as the core, or subtlest layer of the mind / heart / spirituality.
Karma is something we control; through thoughts, words, & actions. It is created in one of three ways; intention, speech, & deeds. Of the three, according to the Buddha, intention is primary & the most important, then speech, next comes deeds. This might be counter intuitive, since we have expressions like "the road to jigoku is paved with good intentions" or "actions speak louder than words."
However, when we look at what the Buddha means by intention, it becomes clearer. Also, the story of the boy who gave mud pies to the Buddha comes to mind. Good deeds done grudgingly, with the intention of getting credit, do not create much merit. However, a clumsy deed, based on wholesome intentions, does create great merit. Moreover, spoken vows, even though we might not be able to immediately follow through, are a strong cause. Also a bad deed, done with right intention, is not necessarily evil.
In this regard, the Buddha taught that there are four kinds of karma. These are wholesome, unwholesome, mixed wholesome & unwholesome, and liberating. Wholesome karma is generated by wholesome mental states; such as generosity, kindness, & discernment. Unwholesome karma is generated by twisted or knotted mental states, called Kleshas; such as greed, hatred, or confusion; and derivatives of these. Liberating Karma is generated by calm objectivity or detachment; seeing things as they are.
r
Posted by: robin at June 1, 2008 04:33 PMHi Byrd,
If you go to the Nichiren Shu Yahoo group files section you will find a large article by me called simply "Karma".
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nichirenshubuddhism/files/
That article has a bibliography at the end of it that should give you what you are looking for. The article itself has excerpts from the relevant discourses by the Buddha. The one book in particular I would recommend is Nagapriya's "Expoloring Karma and Rebirth."
Namu Myoho Renge Kyo,
Ryuei