Karma and Rebirth
Q: What is karma?
A: All religions recognize some kind of underlying principle that brings harmony to what appears to be chaos. In Buddhism, this primal energy that keeps the beat, providing a consistent rhythm to the manifestation of all form, is called karma.
Karma functions precisely as it does regardless of how or from where the world came into being, if it came into being at all. Rather than trying to answer questions about the origins of the universe, the theory of karma is a recognition of the principle running the system.
Living ethically helps us to make the best out of the karmic situation that so completely determines the conditions of our life. Do good, and goodness shall follow. Do what is not so good, and reap the results of that as well.
Q: Why is life so unfair? The selfish, arrogant, and powerful seem to live as they want to, enjoying whatever they want without concern for others, whereas sensitive, kind people seem to experience more than their fair share of difficulty and pain. Thus it seems more sensible to try to get whatever you can out of this life.
A: The world is painfully and precisely fair. The world you are experiencing is as it is because the karma you made for yourself was as it was. We have free choice, you know. But once negative karma has been generated from our choices, it is ours to keep. No one else, nothing else, can interfere to change the effect it bears on our lives.
The seemingness of other people’s lives is just that. Sometimes someone else’s life seems to be a winner. But we see in effect only one or two frames of a very long movie. Seen from a broader and deeper perspective, the picture may be completely different. Many of the so-called winners these days appear to me like leading characters in a “B” comedy movie.
We are the result of our karma. Karma is a neutral, emotionless mechanism that merely collects the results of intentional actions and returns them to their respective owners. This may not happen within the frames of the movie you are observing, but sooner or later the appropriate karmic consequences will manifest. Simply stated, this is the law of the universe. Everyone, without exception, gets their just desserts—and they may not necessarily be sweet!
Q: Why do some people live well and long, and others briefly and tragically?
A: People live their lives according to the tendencies determined by their karma. They live as long as they do and as well as they do according to their punya, the merit they accrue from good deeds.
This is completely fair and just. If someone with a storehouse of goodness behind them goes and squanders it, they will reap the consequences of that foolishness in direct relationship to their carelessness. Don’t worry if others don’t seem to be getting their just desserts. They will. And so will you. Now is the time to do good, live wisely, support wisdom, have loving compassion for others, and develop your mind as best you can.
Q: In Asia many people believe that their condition is caused by karma. That means that poor people working for just enough to survive are destined to live in a world of poverty their entire lives. They are bound by the idea that because they are poor, they must die poor as well. This notion itself must contribute heavily to the cycle of poverty in many Asian countries.
A: Few people really understand the mechanism of karma. One has to know where to look. I must say that your way of viewing karma in Asia is rather over-simplified. Westerners’ notions of karma often reveal an attitude of cultural superiority that perceives the principle of karma as part of a religion based on fatalism and superstition.
Karma is a natural law. It operates in nature whether anyone recognizes it or not. The law of karma reveals the complexity of the problems of chronic poverty in the lives of very poor people. In the West, many have the idea that money and market-based job training will bring an end to poverty, that people will then be in a position to earn an adequate living and eventually move up the social ladder. However, if we recognize that poverty is the result of negative karma, we see that the vast majority of poor people have a whole spectrum of obstacles in front of them. It’s not that they have been indoctrinated into the assumption of a predestined fate and that’s the whole of it; in fact, they have heavy karma to bear throughout this life.
People born into a cycle of poverty struggle through the minimum level of schooling until they can quit to find a job. In a country like Thailand, a boy or girl can continue in school through the aid of scholarships. However, poor children usually leave school before they become literate. They retain a diminished self-concept of their intellectual abilities. They usually lack ambition and enthusiasm for education or work. They are born into family situations that condition them to see only a tiny range of work possibilities. They think about work in terms of days and seasons, so they don’t try to improve careless and sloppy habits. When they acquire more money than they need, they promptly spend it. They are also easily addicted to alcohol, tobacco, and gambling. Poverty is a condition in which whole constellations of heavy, negative forces keep people in a circumscribed, survival-oriented existence.
We recognize this as the ill-effects of unwholesome karma. It is, of course, possible to work one’s way out, but it is a long, hard, uphill struggle. As spiritual advisors, we try hard to teach people how to live skillfully and morally in order to avoid such a tragic kind of existence.
Q: I don’t know whether I should believe in rebirth or believe that we are only born once. Rebirth is much more fashionable among my circle of friends, but I don’t have a clue regarding either concept.
A: We can believe in either, both, or neither. A variety of views and opinions about this have developed over the centuries. They all have their adherents. Some believe so fervently that things are as they believe them to be that they would kill to defend their beliefs. This is so irrational that we can only shake our heads in wonder.
All these views and opinions lie within the same straitjacket called belief. Keep in mind that they are merely ideas about the world and are subject to change; they have no real substance. If you want to know about rebirth, or even about no-birth, you will need to turn your mind toward the source of these concepts and learn to see through or even beyond rational perception.
Walking with my eyes cast down just in front of me, I move through the villages while the day is still in its infancy. As I pass along the streets, people call out an invitation to accept their food offerings. Sometimes I come upon a pair of feet that jars my memory back to some obscure time or place. Gazing at what I take to be an old man’s funny assortment of toes takes me back to some other lifetime, some other plane of existence. Yet the notion of past lives is impossible to endorse with any degree of confidence, for who among us can really know this directly? Some other life or life form may suggest itself, but that doesn’t make it real. These quirky memory blips could simply be a trick of the imagination. People can get caught up in these nebulous concepts. In reality, everything that vaguely suggests itself is merely a possibility in a world of infinite possibilities. None of this has any bearing on our predicament right here and right now.
The rational mind lowers itself from its exalted position whenever we consider the immensity of the physical universe. Pulling ourselves away from our computers and TVs to look up at the stars twinkling on a clear night, we can’t help but be humbled by the awesome nature of the world we live in. This is a vastly different mode of mind than the one that worries about the endless array of petty concerns pertaining to this one life. It makes us wonder, “Did I come from somewhere up there? Out there?” We all seem to have a sense that this life is not all that we have experienced or will experience.
All this leads to thoughts about rebirth and all its fascinating implications. Was I once the Queen of Sheba? Napoleon? Sam the tailor? There are endless possibilities and we can embrace them all and, in a flight of fantasy, extricate ourselves from being whoever it is we now think we are.
Just for a moment consider these two hypotheses: One is that we are born once through the merging of an egg and sperm. The life that arises out of that meeting lasts at most a hundred years, and then it disappears. The other hypothesis takes shape through sustained meditation practice. Consciousness is capable and indeed susceptible to taking birth in any kind of form, both imaginable and unimaginable. In reality, everything exists at all times. We have existed in an endless series of forms by way of an energy dimension that has nothing whatsoever to do with our notion of time and space. Since everything exists at all times, it may be possible to be simultaneously alive in a body and not so. All things are one thing and all time is now.