Karma: Causes And Effects

“It is an individual’s accumulation of good or evil karma and also his dominating character traits, good or evil, which affect the karmic result.” Karma is the law of moral causation. The theory of karma is a fundamental doctrine in Buddhism. This belief was prevalent in India before the advent of the Buddha. Nevertheless, it was the Buddha who explained and formulated this doctrine in the complete form in which we have it today.

In Buddhism, the Sanskrit word Karma (kamma in Pali) means 'action” and is defined as the intention manifested in the action of thought, body, and speech; it is the intention that produces karma, and not the act itself. Skillful actions that lead to good karmic outcomes are based upon motives of generosity; compassion, kindness and sympathy, and clear mindfulness or wisdom. The opposite motives of greed, aversion (hatred) and delusion, when acted upon, lead to bad karmic results. Everyone in this world is subject to the great chain of causes and consequences, successions of rebirth and death, called karmic law or karma. The cause is generally compared to the seed and the consequences to the fruit. The fruits of karma are harvested in the form of happiness or misery depending on the nature of the acts committed.

In this world nothing happens to a person that he does not for some reason or other deserve. Usually, men of ordinary intellect cannot comprehend the actual reason or reasons. The definite invisible cause or causes of the visible effect is not necessarily confined to the present life, they may be traced to a proximate or remote past birth.

According to Buddhism, this inequality is due not only to heredity, environment, 'nature and nurture', but also to karma. In other words, it is the result of our own past actions and our own present doings. We ourselves are responsible for our own happiness and misery. “We create our own Heaven. We create our own Hell. We are the architects of our own fate.”

Buddhism also suggest that not all that we experience is the result of past action; it may be due to natural events of one sort or another. This is one point on which early Buddhism appears to differ somewhat from later Tibetan teachings, which suggest that all the good and bad things that happen to us are the results of past actions. Whilst there might be doubt, or different opinions, about why we are experiencing some sort of misfortune, there is no doubt that we can resolve any suffering in the present moment through the Buddhist teachings of mindfulness and action based upon good motives. For Buddhists, karma has implications beyond this life. Bad actions in a previous life can follow a person into their next life and cause bad effects which Westerners are more likely to interpret as 'bad luck'.

Even an ‘enlightened one’ is not exempt from the effects of past karma. One story tells that the Buddha's cousin tried to kill him by dropping a boulder on him. Although the attempt failed, the Buddha's foot was injured. He explained that this was karmic retribution for trying to kill his step-brother in a previous life. On a larger scale, karma determines where a person will be reborn and their status in their next life. Good karma can result in being born in one of the heavenly realms. Bad karma can cause rebirth as an animal, or torment in a hell realm.

Buddhists try to cultivate good karma and avoid bad. However, the aim of Buddhism is to escape the cycle of rebirth altogether, not simply to acquire good karma and so to be born into a more pleasant state. These states, while preferable to human life, are impermanent: even gods eventually die.

Karma is not an external force, not a system of punishment or reward dealt out by a god. The concept is more accurately understood as a natural law like gravity. Buddhists believe we are in control of our ultimate fates. The problem is that most of us are ignorant of this, which causes suffering. The purpose of Buddhism is to take conscious control of our behavior. The Buddha taught about karmic 'conditioning', which is a process by which a person's nature is shaped by their moral actions.

Every action we take molds our characters for the future. Both positive and negative traits can become magnified over time as we fall into habits. All these cause us to acquire karma. This shows why Buddhists place such importance on being mindful of every action they take. Acting on karmic habits increases their strength. Buddhists gradually weaken any negative thoughts and impulses that they experience, through allowing them to arise and depart naturally without acting on them. In this way karmic habits can be broken.

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“The best way to start is to see where one starts from.” The Buddha called recollection “the only way.” Quite simply, recollection is remembering to establish the attention with full awareness on the present, on the here and now, so that you may reunite with reality and find your own true being. The concept of recollection is related to mindfulness, but with a closer relationship with memory. If you can remember something now, it means you have been attentive to it, and if you are attentive now, you will be able to retain it in the future.

One of the tools the Buddha taught for gaining insight is mindfulness, the ability to be fully aware in the moment. On the Buddhist path, it functions in three ways: remembering to stay alert to what you’re doing in the present moment; remembering to recognize the skillful and unskillful qualities that arise in the mind; and remembering how to effectively abandon the qualities that get in the way of concentration, then developing the skillful ones that promote it.

It's important to understand Buddhism as a discipline or process rather than as a belief system. The Buddha did not teach doctrines about enlightenment, but rather taught people how to realize enlightenment themselves. And the way we realize enlightenment is through direct experience. It is through mindfulness that we experience directly, with no mental filters or psychological barriers between us and what is experienced.

Recollection is also known to be a meditation practice of the Buddha. The practice involves the contemplation of qualities associated with the awakened mind. Each quality highlights a feature that the Buddha brought to perfection in conduct, virtue, mental development, wisdom, teaching abilities, social influence, and mental powers. The reflection on these virtuous qualities of the Buddha establishes faith, confidence and inspiration for the path, deepens concentration, inhibits hindrances, strengthens joy, and refreshes the mind. It also serves as a classic protection against doubt. By contemplating the accomplishments of the Buddha, we may sense the potential for awakening within our own lives.

The Buddha taught that suffering comes from ignorance. By “ignorance” he meant the misperceptions and delusions that your mind has about its own nature. Thus, the way to free the mind from suffering is through gaining insight into what truly is. Insight is a profound level of understanding that transcends mere intellectual cognition and can only be known by experiencing it.

According to Buddhist philosophy, suffering is unavoidable. There is evidence of this in our daily lives where we often face challenges and unpleasant circumstances that we cannot control. Being mindful of our thought patterns can help us towards transforming our suffering into well-being. The best news is it can be cultivated through different methods. Every activity, from washing the dishes to drinking tea, can be utilized to develop present moment awareness. Anything in life can be an object of meditation, and through constant practice the practitioner learns to live a more content, clear and honest life.

“It is impossible to see into the depths of a pool of water when it is turbulent.” The foundation teaching of Buddhism, expressed in the Four Noble Truths, is that the stress and unhappiness of life is caused by our desires and ego-clinging. The 'program,' if you will, for letting go of desire and ego is the Eightfold Noble Path. Ethical conduct through speech, action, and livelihood is part of the path, as are mental discipline through concentration and mindfulness and wisdom.

Ethical conduct (sila) is built on the vast conception of universal love and compassion for all living beings, on which the Buddha’s teaching is based. The Buddha gave his teaching “for the good of the many, for the happiness of the many, out of compassion for the world.” According to Buddhism, for a man to be perfect there are two qualities that he should develop equally: compassion on one side, and wisdom on the other. Here compassion represents love, charity, kindness, tolerance, and such noble qualities on the emotional side, or qualities of the heart, while wisdom would stand for the intellectual side or the qualities of the mind. If one develops only the emotional, neglecting the intellectual, one may become a good-hearted fool; while to develop only the intellectual side and neglecting the emotional may turn one into a hard-hearted intellect without feeling for others. Therefore, to be perfect one has to develop both equally. That is the aim of the Buddhist way of life: in it wisdom and compassion are inseparably linked together.

In ethical conduct, based on love and compassion, are included three factors of the eightfold noble path: namely, right speech, right action, and right livelihood. Right speech means abstention from telling lies, from backbiting and slander and talk that may bring about hatred, enmity, disunity, and disharmony among individuals or groups of people, from harsh, rude, impolite, malicious, and abusive language, and from idle, useless, and foolish babble and gossip. When one abstains from these forms of wrong and harmful speech one naturally has to speak the truth, has to use words that are friendly and benevolent, pleasant and gentle, meaningful, and useful. One should not speak carelessly: speech should be at the right time and place. If one cannot say something useful, one should keep “noble silence.” Right action aims at promoting moral, honorable, and peaceful conduct. It admonishes us that we should abstain from destroying life, from stealing, from dishonest dealings, from illegitimate sexual intercourse, and that we should also help others to lead a peaceful and honorable life in the right way. Right livelihood means that one should abstain from making one’s living through a profession that brings harm to others, such as trading in arms and lethal weapons, intoxicating drinks or poisons, killing animals, cheating, etc., and should live by a profession which is honorable, blameless, and innocent of harm to others. One can clearly see here that Buddhism is strongly opposed to any kind of war, when it lays down that trade in arms and lethal weapons is an evil and unjust means of livelihood.

These three factors (right speech, right action, and right livelihood) of the eightfold noble path constitute ethical conduct. It should be realized that the Buddhist ethical and moral conduct aims at promoting a happy and harmonious life both for the individual and for society. This moral conduct is considered as the indispensable foundation for all higher spiritual attainments. No spiritual development is possible without this moral basis. The Buddhist view is that moral behavior flows naturally from mastering one's ego and desires and cultivating loving kindness and compassion.

Works Cited

1. Thera, Nyanaponika. “Karma and It’s Fruit.” The Buddha and His Teachings. Ed. Samuel Bercholz and Sherab Chodzin Kohn. Boston: Shambhala, 2003. pg 125
2. Mangalo, Bhikkhu. “The Practice of Recollection.” The Buddha and His Teachings. Ed. Samuel Bercholz and Sherab Chodzin Kohn. Boston: Shambhala, 2003. pg 130
3. Goenka, S.N.. “Moral Conduct, Concentration, and Wisdom.” The Buddha and His Teachings. Ed. Samuel Bercholz and Sherab Chodzin Kohn. Boston: Shambhala, 2003. pg 98