The Role of Karma in Buddhism

About 563 BC, Buddhism has begun, which makes it ahead before Christianity even began in about 500 years ago. Buddhism was founded by Siddhartha Gautama who was born in a small kingdom as a prince in Himalayan foothills. Gautama’s father kept him within the castle’s wall to avoid the Brahmin’s prophecy that his son would be an ascetic. Hence, Gautama grew up in luxury life, was shielded from the outside world and was entertained by dancing girls. At the same time, he was trained in physical activities such as; archery, swordsmanship, wrestling, swimming and running. However, Gautama encountered a sick man, an old man and a dead man on his way home. He then became aware of the sufferings of human in this world. As a result, he left his kingdom to become an ascetic and developed the Middle Way — a moderate path between self-mortification and self-indulgence. That will help someone to attain Enlightenment. In consequence, he was named Buddha meaning the “Enlightened One”. But to call it as a religion by itself would do injustice. It is more a school that teach moral thoughts and principles as well as a worship religion that preaches the idea of spiritual development leading to kindness and wisdom. For Buddha, everybody should want to follow this in his or her path through life. There are several basic values to be studied and practiced in Buddhism. These teachings revolved from past experiences Buddha has experienced in his life that was used and still using to teach to others.

However, Buddhism in not like any other religion. It is far different from others. For an instance, the “after life” beliefs. Some religion, the ultimate goal is to be one or to be together with their creator, the Father Almighty. Along with this, they should follow the commandments, doing good deeds and following what the scriptures says. However, when you did not follow their beliefs and you did not make your stay here on Earth worthwhile and totally do the opposite of what you should do, they believed that you will go to Hell as the punishment and will suffer there in your after life.

However, in Buddhism there is no such thing as God, the ultimate goal of Buddhism is to reach Nirvana it is not a place rather it is a state of mind. only you, yourself can do this. There will be no God in Buddhism that can save you and will help you to reach your goal. To have a nirvana, you should be enlightened. In this state of mind, all the negative traits should be removed such as greed, ignorance and hatred. Although, if you were not to reach Nirvana, you will enter samsara; the cycle of birth and rebirth. It is all because of your karma, to reap what you have sow.

Karma is a Sanskrit word that means “action” or “doing”. O’ Brien stated that in Buddhism, karma has a more specific meaning, which is volitional or willful action. These are the fruits of your gone by actions or decisions in life. It may also predict what will happen to you in your after life. Doing wholesome gestures may result to positive karma, but unwholesome gestures may result to bad karma. The idea of Nirvana is to cease suffering through individual liberation.

However, in early Buddhism there is no concrete belief of rebirth and karma. Instead showing of being incompetent, the early Buddhist notion of karma focused on what the mind thinks and do every moment. This is when the idea of karma started, they explained it as like a domino effect. Whatever we do, it will always go back at us. Our own decisions and every doings have an attached effect, it can also be match up to cause and effect. The actions we do are the causes and the effect of those actions will be our karma. In addition, karma is not a superstitious belief, it is an automatic law of justice. Since, karma is the fundamental of Buddhism doctrine. The Buddha has defined three types of karma that a human being can do: (i) The karma of words, (ii) The karma of sarir and (iii) The karma done by mind. Just like what Tenzing stated, I agree to what he stated. That the karma of the mind or the intention is the most important thing. Since, this is the starting point of our actions. This is where we filter, where we weigh, and where we deeply think the actions that we will do, it will give directions what we will do whether we will do acceptable actions or not. Specifically, our mind which helps our conscience to determine the consequences of our actions. Geshe Rabten, a modern Tibetan author, thus states that the law of karma as “Just as a seed cannot grow into a plant of a different type, so our actions can only produce actions of their own type.” It stated that, what we plant, it is what will bear. You cannot expect when you plant an apple tree that it will bear a mango tree.

The law of karma helps us to improve the quality of life we live in and into the next life we have. In order to this, Buddha helped us to understand this more through his teachings. Through his teachings, we can avoid things that will lead both ourselves and others to suffering. And may experience immensely happiness and may form more pure happiness.

I mentioned that there are other religions aside from Buddhism. Some of these are Hinduism and Jainism. Hinduism is in fact the well-known religion in the West. They believed in a Supreme Being and committed to follow their concepts such as truth, suffering and karma. And believed in the authority of the Vedas, their sacred scriptures. While Jainism is a religion that teaches salvation by perfection through successive lives and non- injury to living creatures and is noted for ascetics that uses three guiding principles also called as “three jewels”; the right belief, right knowledge and right conduct. The three said religions shares a lot of common interest, one of these is the law of karma. In Buddhism, the law of karma is the principle of universal causation. When you do good actions it will give you good results while when you do bad actions it may cause you bad results. But in Hinduism, performing proper and what is correct based on your caste system is the karmic quality of one person. While in Jainism, karmic quality is based on their seven truths also called as their fundamental principles also through activities of mind, speech and body are considered to prompt their karmic quality. Regardless, one stated that the theory of karma and moral justice should not make you confused since “justice” is such a big word and was originated from a Divine Being, a God who makes the law and decides what is wrong and right. While karma is the fruit of your own actions. No one can be blame but you. It is not an external force, no one ordered that for you to experience it.

Buddhists believes that we make our own fate, it is in our own hands. But since not all of us are aware of this, many leads to suffering. That is why, they are helping us to be enlightened to become aware and be conscious of our actions.

In addition, being humans are not measured through the judgement of others through our past decisions and doings we have done. Because through our past mistakes we can learn through it and we can change at any moment through our own free will. Sayadaw stated that the result of our own past actions and our own present doings, we ourselves are the ones responsible for them. This is what the law of karma trying to tell us. We experience suffering and misery because of our own actions. That we create our own heaven and hell. We, ourselves are the own architect of our life. Just like what was stated in one of the teachings of Buddha, the Four Noble Truths, we should be aware of that suffering is part of life. Life is not all about fancy and good things. There will be times in your life that you will suffer. Everyone will feel suffering and it should not stop you to feel the happiness once again. Another teaching of Buddha was, there’s a way to cease suffering. Just like what I’ve said, it is not always suffering, you should know how to stop it. Experiencing suffering should motivate you to do good and do something to lessen in experiencing the pain of suffering again. At the same time, people should know that karma is not a bondage. Tenzing stated that karma should not be a dead weight lying on the shoulders of a man. It should not hinder someone’s life and his daily activities. Rather it should help an individual to know whether what is right and should have a free choice. The doctrine of karma also explains how our freedom and responsibilities work.

Furthermore, Buddhists have only one meaning of karma and that is the universal meaning. However, Jones identified the meanings of karma into two kinds; the universal and psychological. He explained that psychological meaning of karma, that it is understanding how practicing ethics. It is more on an outcome of the intentional actions of our body, speech and mind and has good consequences and may lead to happier life. For an instance, when you review and study well for your exam without a doubt, you will get a good result or when you helped a charity or even someone, the fulfillment of those most importantly when they say their gratitude it cannot be compared on your material goods. While for Jones, the universal meaning of karma is more on universal moral justice. The intentional acts of body, speech and mind will have a corresponding consequence to it. For example, when you go to church and give a lot of offerings to the needy, those acts will build up. Hence it will never fade, when your time comes your collected merit will help you to have a pleasant rebirth. To sum it up, both have different implications in life, universal law of karma is more on the religious belief while psychological law is something that we can observe through time.

In this world, most people cannot comprehend that what he experience is what he deserves. Since, many people are not aware of such things, they believed that their karma is what they are experience at the current life time they have but it is not. They should know that the karma they are experience are consequences from their previous life, the incident that they occurred are maybe free acts or others are on the environment. Since, the theory of karma requires individuals to have a free will, Buddhists suddenly realized it has multiple loopholes. That the past and the present actions were helping us in forming for our current situation and at the same time the present actions will help us to figure the current and the future. Bhikkhu compared the nature of freedom to the flowing water. Which the early Buddhist used. That sometimes the flow from our past is so strong that it is hard to withstand it but there are also times when the flow is gentle that it so easy to go in any almost directions. And instead of going with the flow and doing absolutely nothing, Buddhist Notion of Man we should do the totally opposite of it. We should at least try to do something because every thing can change in an instant.

Being aware on karma helps us to live in harmonious life and peace with the people and circumstances that we encounter in our everyday life. It also helps us to learn in accepting the previous happenings in our life, both good and the bad. That we will not be stuck on our past and never question the sufferings we encounter. Moreover, it will assist us to our current and upcoming decisions. Also, acknowledging our attitude helps us to live a meaningful way of life and will strengthen the determination to maintain the views and intentions in our daily life. Moreover, it will help us to purify our actions and minds by enriching our actions and our mind. In this religion, ignorance to suffering is the big hindrance for not reaching the liberation. You should do good actions that will surely reward and help you.

Human life is so exquisite, that having spiritual growth was a spectacular chance for one’s self. Buddhists suggest that you should not blow that given opportunity, life is too short and it may be cut anytime. Always remember that good deeds are rewarded in the next life. While doing evil deed will make you suffer in the next life. Based on your moral law it will help you to visualize of what your next life would be. From an article that I read, in your after life, karma may affect your social status, wealth, intelligence, beauty as well as your longevity. Moreover, good moral actions lead to wholesome rebirths while bad moral actions lead to unwholesome rebirths.

Whether we believe in karma or not, all living beings — human and non-human — suffer. No matter how much we try to gain comfort, there is no satisfaction, and the limited comfort we gain always quickly finishes. There is no definite peace and no control over the sufferings of death and rebirth. All this shows clearly that no living being is free of karma and that karma exists in fact. We all know now that the happiness and suffering that we experience are our karma. And all our experiences of happiness and suffering depend on our karma. No matter how much we desire happiness, if we follow ignorance alone, without respecting karma, we’ll have nothing but to experience suffering.

Since we create the karma, we should observe our actions very well. By avoiding non-virtuous actions and practicing virtuous ones. And also we must be able to distinguish between them. We should always be conscious of our actions of body, speech and mind, checking up continuously, avoiding the slightest negative action and trying to create even the tiniest virtuous action. We need to be able to identify these negative minds in order to deal with them, which is why understanding subjects such as karma is vital. Unless we can see below the actual action it is so difficult to judge whether that action is harmful or not. The action itself is not an indication of whether it is positive or negative; it is the mind, the motivation creating the action that determines this. Even though the action might look generous on the surface, if it is done for the wrong reason, such as reputation, it is a negative one, and conversely, even though an action might look negative, if the motivation is positive, then it is a positive one. Only by checking our motivation, we will be able to know the difference.

Actually it is not easy to know every single action and to know what is right and what is wrong. For that we need wisdom and a deep understanding of the mind, seeing clearly the different functions of the mind, recognizing the different negative thoughts. Without the wisdom to recognize positive from negative actions, we can think we are perfect and not realize we are in fact ignorant. The deeper understanding of karma that we have, the more answers we get. It goes deeper than mere intellectual knowledge, like facts coming out of a computer printer, we gain a deep-seated feeling for what is actually true. In this way our understanding of ourselves and other beings becomes more and more profound. We’re no longer on the surface of the ocean but diving down deep, discovering all the different fish and jewels and animals that are down there.