Chapter 11

In chapter 1, we discussed that karma is the way our personal ethical world operates. The concept of collective karma also exists.

Madame Blavatsky of the Theosophical Society first suggested this term in the early 1900s. It refers to a situation in which a group of people experience harm or death, such as a natural disaster or a war. Sometimes it is used to suggest that the group who was harmed or killed is somehow responsible for their own injury or demise.

This non-Buddhist concept is not accurate. It is easy to blame people for what happens to them. We have seen responsibility unfairly placed on many groups of suffering beings:

the six million Jews who perished in the Holocaust.
the 230,000 people who died during the Indian Ocean tsunami in 2014.
the West Africans who were brought to America as slaves between the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries.

Let’s examine the group of people who decided to harm another group. A group is a collection of individuals. And each person that is part of a “group” decision to harm others has their own individual karma. As we have discussed, each person who decided to take those harmful actions will reap negative karma.

There is no “collective action” that creates “collective karma.” It only appears that way in these extreme cases. For example, a country and its population go to war. But the decision to go to war was made by individuals in government positions, who were supported by those who elected them to office and those who carried out the killing.

We can determine individual responsibility if there is a direct connection between action and consequence in this lifetime. Hitler and his followers made decisions that created the calamity that was the Third Reich. At the time, many Germans supported his despicable actions. Those individuals who have gone to war and committed atrocities will face the consequences either in this lifetime or in future lifetimes.

Now let’s consider the people who were harmed or killed by war. From a Buddhist perspective, the events of World War II lie squarely on the shoulders of those who caused them in this lifetime.

However, we do not hold people responsible for actions they took in previous lifetimes. It is impossible to determine the cause and effect of multiple lives. We only hold people responsible for their actions in their current incarnation.

Blame or fault is never the focus when we look at karmic actions that may have taken place many lifetimes ago. The Buddhist focus is on acting now to prevent it from happening again. We are individuals and we all must learn from our mistakes.

exercise

Consider the decisions made by those who committed genocide versus those made by the people who chose to help the victims. In both cases their karma placed them at that moment in time. While some chose to perpetuate the horrific acts, others chose not to. In what situations do you find yourself where you have the choice to perpetuate your negative karma or change it?