CHAPTER
7

Karma Work: Habits of Body, Speech, and Mind

In This Chapter

The ultimate Zen paradox is that your life is complete and precious just as it is, but in order to maintain a sense of that preciousness you have to work constantly to decrease the amount of suffering you cause yourself and others.

Chances are good that if you’ve tried some of the practices described in this book so far—meditation, mindfulness, and keeping the precepts—you will have run into some difficulty. Despite your intention to be present during meditation, perhaps your mind is filled with anxiety. You fully intend to be mindful throughout your day, but half the day goes by before you even remember your intention. Keeping the precepts sounds like a good idea, but criticism of others comes flying out of your mouth before you can stop it.

Your habits and tendencies of body, speech, and mind are collectively called your karma. Your karma is the result of all of your past actions and experiences—some of which you had control over, and some of which you did not. Regardless of how it came to be, your karma is the package of energy and momentum you have to work with in your life, and any lasting change requires that you develop an understanding of it and take responsibility for it. Then you can use the Zen tools of meditation, mindfulness, and the precepts to gradually change some of your less-than-helpful behaviors.

About Karma

The way the concept of karma is used in Zen is different from the way it’s used in some other religions, and varying uses of the concept lead to some ideas in popular culture that are misconceptions from a Zen perspective. An example of such a non-Zen concept about karma is the idea that there’s someone or something keeping track of all bad deeds to ensure everyone receives payback eventually. Another example is the idea that karma is like a big game of chance, and if you’re lucky you get some good karma but if you’re unlucky you end up with some bad karma.

In Hinduism and some other forms of Buddhism, such as Vajrayana (from Tibet), karma, or the resulting sum of your past actions, is presented as the only explanation for your circumstances; the choices you made in past lives or in this one explain everything from your depression to your pimples to your financial situation. For some people this explanation is comforting, because it implies you have complete control over your future (it’s all about your behavior). For other people this presentation of karma as the only causal factor in the world doesn’t make sense, and it comes too close to blaming innocent victims for their suffering.

CONSIDER THIS

In an ancient text, Shakyamuni Buddha is quoted as saying there are four topics about which it is pointless to conjecture, because they will only lead to madness and vexation. Two of the four are about spiritual powers, one is the origin of the world, and the fourth is the precise workings of karma. Understanding the precise workings of karma would involve identifying all the causes and conditions that led to a particular result, or exactly how one cause connects to all of its effects. This is impossible, because the web of causation is infinitely complex.

Alternatively, in Zen, karma is used to acknowledge the importance of your intention and choices in the shaping of your circumstances, especially the condition of your mind. Other factors affect your life, including genetics, the way you were raised, and your culture. However, although you can influence your conditions to some extent, you primarily have control over your own choices, so the concept of karma emphasizes how you can take responsibility for your life and shape it depending on what decisions you make. With your choices you primarily affect the state of your own mind, and because Zen considers the state of your mind to be of primary importance when it comes to your experience of the world, the role of karma in Zen is very significant.

Your Karmic Package

It’s pretty natural to wonder, “Why me?” Why did you end up with such a short temper? Why did you end up with a serious illness? Why do you have such a shortage of self-discipline? If you can understand how it came to be, it seems like you will be better equipped to deal with the problem; but sometimes the answers can seem difficult to come by. It’s often easier to see the main causes of other people’s difficulties!

While you acknowledge that Joe probably had some genes and family-of-origin experiences that predisposed him to abuse intoxicants, you can clearly see that as long as he blames his circumstances and refuses to take responsibility for his actions, he won’t break free of his addictions. Mary may wonder why she ended up with heart problems, but her friends don’t wonder why at all because they’re well aware of the fact that Mary doesn’t exercise or eat well.

All of your habits and conditions of body, speech, and mind are due at least in some small part to choices you have made in the past (or continue to make). There is always some element of responsibility: some way you could have responded more constructively to the circumstances in which you ended up, or some way you added to the suffering because of your ideas or desires. The point of acknowledging this responsibility is not to blame yourself and dwell in a sense of guilt, but to start to see causes and effects more clearly and to take responsibility for the things you can change.

POTENTIAL PITFALL

Sometimes people feel unwilling to work on a problem until they can understand how it came to be. This kind of understanding has limited usefulness, however, as illustrated by the ancient Buddhist metaphor of a man who has been shot in the eye with an arrow, but who will not accept medical attention until he gets the answers to all kinds of questions: who shot the arrow, what clan the shooter was from, how the arrow was made, etc. The Buddha concludes that this man will die before he gets all the answers he wants, so he’d better get to work on his problem before they are all answered.

Delayed Effects Can Fool You

One of the trickiest things about understanding karma is that effects can be removed from their causes in space and time. Human beings seem to be very limited in their ability to pay attention to the chain of causation for very long or over much distance; we tend to concentrate on the most immediate effects and figure the chain ends there. This is why people engage in harmful behaviors that have terrible long-term consequences—or terrible consequences on the other side of the world—but have a positive immediate payoff.

Part of the study of karma involves learning to pay close attention to the chain of cause and effect over time and space, and learning to look more carefully at the connections between things. If you latch on to too simple an explanation for something, you may miss other possible contributing causes. Some of those other possible causes may be ones you can personally do something about, so it’s well worth cultivating the habit of carefully studying the unfolding of karma in your life and in the world around you.

The Desire to Change

One of the central teachings of Zen, which will be discussed further in Chapter 11, is that suffering is caused by your desire for things to be other than what they are. So what about the desire to change yourself or your life? Doesn’t that desire just cause suffering? Wouldn’t the Zen way be to try to accept yourself exactly as you are?

Answering these questions is not so simple. One answer is that you have to work on change and acceptance simultaneously, which isn’t easy (more on that later). Another answer is that a constructive wish for change can be wholesome and helpful as long as it isn’t a selfish desire. In other words, it isn’t about you and how you would rather be, it’s about taking care of your life and compassionately trying to minimize suffering and maximize true happiness. To do this you first acknowledge your less-than-helpful behaviors. These can be anything from watching too much TV to unleashing your anger through violence, but chances are good that the behavior will break Zen precepts at some level or another. Then you decide to do what you can to change.

Sorry About That

It may alarm you to know that the traditional Zen path to working on your karma starts with an act called contrition, or confession. This may evoke images of the act of confession in which penitents are led to believe they are obliged to feel guilty for something, and that they must confess their faults to an authority figure.

This is not how Zen contrition works; it can be an entirely private affair and there is no expectation that you should feel constant contrition, that is, sorrow or remorse over your shortcomings. The point about contrition is that you recognize that an aspect of your behavior has been causing harm or confusion, and a sincere desire arises in you to act differently. This is another way of putting the old saying, “You can’t change if you don’t admit you have a problem.”

The point where you feel some remorse or sorrow about something you have done, or continue to do, is a very crucial one. When you arrive here it can be painful and humbling. It’s good not to move past this point too quickly, because the discomfort or regret that you feel serves as part of your inspiration to change. On the other hand, of course, dwelling here in despair or self-loathing isn’t helpful at all. The main point of Zen is that you can do something about your life, so the next step involves some determination and hope that things won’t always be this way.

Taking Responsibility

So, you’ve recognized and ’fessed up to a habit of body, speech, or mind that you’d really like to change. In order to take the next step and make a lasting change in your life, you first have to take full responsibility for making that change. There’s no room for blame anymore. Even if the people who contributed to your problem were to apologize and offer to make amends (probably unlikely in any case), they can’t change your behavior for you. The buck stops here.

When you’re trying to take responsibility in an effective way, it’s helpful to think of yourself as objectively as possible. You might even want to think of the “you” that does the problem behavior as a different person. What’s called for is determination and a firm hand, but in order to get that “other” person to change, you’re also going to need patience, compassion, and creativity.

Just judging and bad-mouthing your inner overeater, gossiper, or thief is unlikely to result in any change; after all, they’re taking advantage of the same store of determination as you are! When you take responsibility you admit that no one else is going to be able to bring about the change you want, so you’d better use all your resources and intelligence to do it yourself, whatever it takes.

Obstacles to Change

Why is change so hard, and how can we deal with obstacles to change? The bad news is that the answers to these questions won’t give you any quick and easy solutions. If they did, Zen teachers would be rich and everyone would be a Zen practitioner! The good news is that understanding the obstacles to change can help you start to break them down, slowly but surely. At the very least you can begin to appreciate why change can be so hard, and to not feel too discouraged if you aren’t getting the results you would like.

Habit Energy

Habits can be thought of as having energy in and of themselves, rather like behavioral momentum. What at first takes effort or feels rather uncomfortable later becomes easy, and still later becomes something you find yourself doing before you even realize it. It’s like the habit itself has energy that either sucks you in or is capable of just going on without you. No matter your intentions or how much insight you’ve gotten about your behavior, you keep getting caught in the habit energy and doing the same thing over and over.

One of my Zen teachers, Kyogen Carlson, told a simple but very helpful story to illustrate the power of habit energy. The screen door to his yard got replaced, and it ended up opening on the opposite side from where the old door had opened. This was the door his cat ran to when she wanted to go outside. For many days after the door had been changed, the cat ran eagerly to wait at the side of the door that used to open.

Kyogen, despite knowing that the door had been changed, despite having the intelligence to understand the laws of mechanics, also moved toward the side of the door that used to open. He and his cat finally got used to the new door, and moved toward the correct side, after about the same amount of time. Kyogen’s understanding didn’t help, but the repeated effort to move the right way eventually did.

ZEN WISDOM

“Don’t be pulled along by habit energies, or you will not be able to avoid adversity. When musicians are in harmony, the music is beautiful. When forms are upright, the shadows are clear. Everything comes into existence due to causes and conditions. Stand in awe of this teaching, and look at all situations globally, both in time and in space. Once an action has been performed, the result is already there, even if it takes a hundred thousand lifetimes to manifest.”

—Zen Master Guishan (771–853), from his treatise “Encouraging Words,” as translated by Thich Nhat Hanh in Stepping Into Freedom

It takes time and energy to change a habit. This is like Newton’s third law of motion, which states that when you exert force on something, it exerts an equal and opposite amount of force on you. A habit is a behavioral object, and in order to move it—especially if you want it to go in the opposite direction—you will have to exert plenty of force.

In the case of a purely physical habit like the one above, moving toward a door in a particular way, the effort can also be purely physical. When it comes to more complex habits of body, speech, and mind, it can take some work just to find out where to exert force in order to change things. I’ll discuss how to do this in the upcoming section on unraveling habits.

Conflicting Desires

You can also be your own obstacle to change because you have conflicting desires. One part of you wants to change, but another part of you doesn’t. All of your habits formed, at some point, for a reason. For example, the behavior you would like to change may have originally been a way of protecting yourself in a difficult situation, and part of you is scared to give it up. Another behavior may result in temporary comfort or relief even though it has negative long-term consequences; when you feel the need for comfort, you’re likely to forget about your aspiration to change.

The important thing when it comes to conflicting desires is to recognize them. If you’re overly identified with the righteous part of you that wants to make healthy improvements to your life, chances are you’ll blind yourself to the ways you undermine your own efforts to change. If you notice and acknowledge the motivations you have to keep up a habit, you may be able to negotiate with yourself.

In the examples above, you could try to recognize that the intense need to protect yourself has passed (assuming this is the case), so you can change your habitual behavior and still be safe. You can acknowledge your need to seek comfort at times, and try some alternative ways of meeting that need. You generally won’t manage to make a change until all of the parts of you are on board.

Not Thinking Outside the Box

If you have a set idea about a problem and that problem isn’t going away, it may be because you’re looking at the problem incorrectly or incompletely. For example, say your tongue gets tied when you face conflict, so you end up unable to express your viewpoint when you need to. You decide this must happen because you lack self-esteem due to a difficult childhood. You get some therapy and spend time doing things you’re good at to give you confidence, but the problem doesn’t change much.

Then you step back and observe the pattern again, letting go of your preconceived ideas about what’s happening, and realize something quite different is going on. You actually have plenty of self-esteem, but you’re biting your tongue when faced with conflict because you don’t want to indulge anger and make a mess of things. While angry, you can’t think of anything constructive to say. Now the problem looks very different, and you can try entirely different ways to approach it. You might take a communication course that helps you express your needs without anger, as well as carefully examine the nature of your anger during meditation and mindfulness.

When trying to change habits, think outside the box. Get creative, like an artist, scientist, or engineer. Don’t limit yourself to a certain set of tools, even Zen ones. You never know what will tip the balance and let you change the direction of your habit energy.

Unraveling a Habit

Habits of body, speech, and mind can be complex and influenced by all kinds of things—like assumptions, beliefs, memories, fears, and triggers. While the habit has a kind of blind momentum, it also manifests in particular kinds of circumstances, in particular ways. Unraveling a habit so you can see where to exert the force of change involves paying close attention to conditions and events that encourage the habit to manifest. The more familiar you get with watching the habit unfold, the sooner in the process of manifestation you will be able to become aware of it.

Watching How Things Unfold

Mindfulness practice will help you cultivate the ability to pay close, sustained attention to the events of your life and watch as karma shows itself in the form of your habit. Just as in zazen and mindfulness, you try to observe what happens while maintaining a mind-body posture of alertness, uprightness, and openness.

Often the first sign that something is happening to which you should pay attention is the “yuck” feeling you get from breaking a precept. After you do something carelessly or selfishly, there’s usually a physical reaction of some kind, such as a feeling of tightness in your chest or slight nausea in your stomach. Clueing into these phenomena can be your mindfulness reminder when it comes to karma work: pay attention!

At first, you’re not trying to change your behavior. This is important, because your clarity and stillness will be compromised by the desire to change things, or by a negative judgment of your own actions. You just watch. Or, more accurately, you stay present for the unfolding of the habit instead of letting yourself get distracted.

A great example to illustrate the process of unraveling (and then stopping) a karmic pattern is working with a habit of speech. As you begin working on a tendency to bad-mouth others, you’ll probably catch the habit well after your conversation is over, when you notice a slightly unpleasant feeling. “Oh, I did it again,” you think. Instead of letting judgment derail you, however, you just pay attention to how you currently feel, and see if you can recall any of the circumstances that led to your harmful speech. You might be able to recall what you were thinking when you spoke and how caught up in the habit you were. Then you let the whole episode go and live your life until the next time you catch your habit—again, probably after the whole behavior pattern has played itself out.

Catching It Sooner

Eventually, if you keep up the practice of paying mindful attention to your habit, you will catch it sooner and sooner. In the example of harmful speech, after a while you realize you have acted out your habit right after your conversation ends. Then you start noticing the habit in the middle of your conversation but you’re powerless to stop it. (This can be particularly frustrating.) Then you become aware earlier in your conversation and might have a few points where you can act a little differently.

Eventually you approach conversations with an awareness of your habitual tendencies and are able to carry a consciousness of them with you, throughout the entire interaction. Due to your attentiveness, it ends up feeling like there’s more space (or time) between a stimulus you can react to and your response. In that space you can make a choice, rather than simply be carried along by your habit energy.

Making a Change

When you have sufficiently unraveled a habit so you can find the space to make a different choice, what do you do? How do you learn to act in a new way? The problem is, you are only familiar with your habitual way. Even when you notice the space between stimulus and reaction, it’s easy for habit energy to suck you down the same old road. The Zen recommendation is to emphasize stopping your old pattern before you worry about establishing a new one.

First Just Stop

The first pure, or essential, Zen precept is to “cease from harmful actions.” Cessation is the starting point for change, and it can be the toughest part. Just stopping can sound negative, but it’s being done for compassionate reasons. The point is not to stop forever, in order to become a passive zombie that can’t take action. The point is to stop long enough to break a pattern. How long will you have to just stop? It’s difficult to say. But don’t get waylaid on your path to change by concern about what you’ll do with yourself once your habit is gone. Just stop indulging your anger, abusing intoxicants, or lying. What comes next will take care of itself in time.

Cessation is where “the rubber hits the road,” as the saying goes. No matter how much clarity you’ve gotten about your behavior, if you are ultimately unwilling to give it up, you won’t end up with the change that at least part of you wants to see. This is where the motivations behind your habit often become clear.

In the example we’ve been using about harmful speech, when the time comes for you to simply refrain from saying anything rather than engage in bad-mouthing someone, it feels quite awkward. You want to keep up a social connection with the person you’re with, you have a really legitimate point to make, and you’re afraid you’ll seem boring or stupid if you just say, “Hmmm …” rather than respond with a witty criticism. You want to say something so badly, you have to literally bite your tongue to keep from doing so.

Then Try Something New

Once you’ve changed your habit to the point that you’re no longer acting the way you used to, you’re ready to try something new. It’s best to take your time and be open-minded about what that new way will look like. This is your chance to pay close attention to what’s going on around you, so you can respond in the wisest, most compassionate way you can.

Our example about harmful speech is one I can appreciate, because it’s an example from my own practice. I tended to criticize people and things in conversation in a way that I thought displayed my wit and intelligence. When I was finally able to stop engaging in this behavior, I went through a rather awkward social time. I wasn’t sure how to talk to people anymore. Some of my friendships lapsed because I had changed, and I kind of dreaded conversations.

Eventually, I began to notice that people weren’t spending time with me to hear me pronounce my judgments on people and things. They wanted to know how I was doing, and they had things they wanted to share with me. A whole new field of possibilities opened up for me in conversation. Although I still get caught up in my habit of criticism from time to time, I know a better way and can easily shift my behavior to more healthy forms of speech.

Support for Karma Work

There are several things you can do to support your effort to make changes in your life. If you have any difficulty at all changing habits you’ve identified as being harmful or unhealthy, it would be good to keep these suggestions in mind.

The first way to support your karma work is to choose your goals wisely. The thing you’re determined to change may not be the most important thing to work on right now, or you may not be able to address it until you’ve worked on some other things first. Examine carefully your reasons for wanting to change. If your reasons have mostly to do with the opinions of others, you probably don’t have sufficient motivation to see the process of change through to the end.

Your goals also need to be reasonable, and by this I mean they should be achievable. By you, in the near future. A goal such as “I will not get angry” probably needs to be broken into smaller goals, with the first goal being something like, “I will try to notice my anger three times each day.” Achievable goals often seem ridiculously small, but making them any bigger makes them unachievable, which doesn’t make any sense.

CONSIDER THIS

In case you resist the idea of needing support from other people in your practice, you should know that Shakyamuni Buddha is said to have corrected his senior monk when the monk made the statement, “Having good spiritual friends amounts to half of the holy life” (meaning, it is extremely important). The Buddha said, “No, Ananda, having good spiritual friends is the whole of the holy life.” In a tradition where you have to take responsibility for yourself and do your own practice, this is a remarkable comment on the importance of your connections with other human beings.

The next thing you can do to support your efforts to change is to seek the support of others. Being surrounded by nice, positive people who understand and appreciate what you’re trying to do helps immensely. It’s even better if they’re trying to do the same thing you are. If you can find people who have achieved something you would like to achieve, ask them how they did it. The support of others even extends to a kind of positive peer pressure; when you know others are making progress, it’s a little harder to accept your own excuses.

Finally, even as you work on your karma, it’s good to keep working on your Zen wisdom, especially on your personal experience of how you’re empty of an inherent, enduring self-nature. There is no fixed “you” that is flawed; you’re just part of a karmic stream that has some unhealthy elements. You still have to take responsibility for that karmic stream, but a growing conviction about emptiness helps make the burden of change feel lighter. Instead of living in a mire of self-criticism and guilt, it’s possible to know you’re fundamentally okay. As long as you’re fundamentally okay, you have nothing to get really upset about, so you might as well try to improve your life!

The Least You Need to Know