Tag Archives: Buddhism

Understanding Karma

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Recognizing that karma is essentially imponderable, the Buddha refused to discuss its intricacies or the way it unfolded in one’s life. He spoke of the cause-and-effect relationship between actions and consequences and emphasized the value of mindful scrutiny of each thought and behavior in controlling negative karma, but beyond this, he avoided abstract discussions on the issue. Why is karma so inscrutable? The foremost reason has to do with the unity of life and the impossibility of explaining unity from the perspective of separateness. When we are acting from the delusion of self, our motives are not in concert with the rest of creation. Blinded by desire, we in effect act “alone” against the whole, and frustration and suffering inevitably result. The metaphors offered below can be helpful in gaining some understanding of this important but enigmatic subject.

Electricity  If we are working carelessly with wiring and we get shocked, we are unlikely to think that the bolt of electricity was punishment from God for our negligence. Rather, we see right away that we have no one to blame but ourselves. Certain behaviors are paired with certain predictable consequences. If we are not careful in the way we handle live wires, we will learn hard lessons in the process. It is simply the nature of the work. Similarly, esoteric spirituality emphasizes personal responsibility rather than ideas such as sin and divine judgment. Karma is called the great teacher, and while its consequences can be dire, it is through the pain and suffering our mistakes produce that we ultimately become seekers on the path to freedom.

Ceiling Fan  Those of us who live in warm climates often have ceiling fans that quietly, but efficiently, circulate the air and make our homes more comfortable. When the fan is turned off, the motor stops propelling the blades, but they continue in their circular motion for several minutes before they come to a complete stop. It is the same with karma. Even when we are able to refrain from behavior that has produced suffering for us in the past, we may not find ourselves immediately free from that suffering. The momentum of our previous actions must often play out in our lives before the fruits of our new behavior become apparent.

Spiderweb  Spiderwebs have decorated the nooks and crannies of our lives as long as any of us can remember. The delicate interweaving of the silken threads is designed by nature to alert the spider to the slightest disturbance. If the web is touched in any part, the entire structure vibrates. The world we live in is similarly intertwined. Nothing is separate, and a disturbance in one area is felt throughout the whole. The principle of karma is based on this kind of reciprocity and balance. Our individual behavior does not occur in a vacuum, and no matter how insignificant our actions may seem, they produce an effect in the world around us.

Factorial  When we are suffering, we often want to isolate the causes and identify the sequence of actions that led to our current conditions. We continually obsess over particular actions, our own or others’, as the genesis of our personal and societal problems today. But nothing is that simple. Consider factorials—mathematical calculations of the number of ways in which a certain number of things can be sequenced. The factorial for 10 exceeds three and a half million possible sequences! If just ten physical objects can be sequenced in so many different ways, it should be obvious that any attempt to analyze the karmic chain of causation in human behavior is futile. Everything causes everything; even the minor daily events in our personal lives are infinitely complex.

Haiku as spiritual practice

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Writing haiku, the traditional short Japanese poems that have gained worldwide popularity, is something that can prove helpful in opening our eyes to what is, and the wonder of being alive. We are all guilty of spending large portions of our waking hours lost in thought. We swing back and forth between past and future, and only rarely stay right where we are, in the here and now. Typically, we go through life with a “been there and done that” attitude, and in our busy, fast-forward life styles, put the flesh and blood of living on hold to do something “more important.”

When we are born, our vision is fresh. Our first experience is undifferentiated and timeless, and we have no real perception of self or other. As young children, we live in Eden but don’t know it. We unconsciously play in the garden of life, fascinated with the wonder of what is. Writing haiku is an activity that can train our eye to see some of those wonders again, but with the added appreciation gained from age and experience. While obviously a conceptual activity, it is nevertheless one that redirects our attention towards the unconditioned “suchness” of what is. Haiku can give us a hint of the meaning of the Buddhist phrase, Samsara is Nirvana. Writing these short poems, devoid of judgment, prejudice and expectation, can nuture the gift of observation and mindful attention, and help us to find the magic in the ordinary. Just this! It is a practice of being wherever you are, of living in the present instead of in the past or future. This very moment – a fleeting immediacy of what is – is all that is real, and to that we must attend if we are to see the truth of what is.

Allow yourself the priviledge to being stunned by the extraordinary detail of life. Forget all you know. See with fresh eyes, unclouded by conditioning. Take time to sink into the moment, and perhaps taste life when the conceptual veil between self and other falls away. It is here that you can find an abundance of miracles to herald in the few words of a haiku. The form of haiku that is used or the effectiveness of the wording is not what is most important here. Rather, it is that they may unveil for us the obvious, the home we never left but only forgot. Here are a couple of mine:

high grass / peeking at mower / from under the parked car

startled prankster / under the bed / . . . tail showing

offered on its own / the violet’s / flower sermon

same barber / same conversation / thirty years

Paths up a mountain

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Anyone who has read even part of my book knows how much I rely on metaphors to explain the counterintuitive and paradoxical subjects that one encounters in nondual spirituality. This metaphor is about the paths to the summit of a mountain that wind up its slopes. I use it here to illustrate how a common truth, a shared realization of nonduality, can be found at the heart of Hinduism, Buddhism, Christianity, Judaism, Taoism and Sufism, when they exhibit such diverse rituals, beliefs, and practices. In a world of continuing religious conflict, there is a tremendous need for this vision of wholeness.

As is the case with most mountains, there are numerous paths that start from different points around the bottom, and they vary widely in the skill and strength needed to climb them. For those people who remain at the lower elevations, the views are limited. In the foothills at the base of the mountain, one area may be lush with vegetation, while another is arid and rocky. In another location, there may be a pine forest. The few who climb higher get an ever-widening perspective. As they gain altitude, they begin to see some of what climbers on other paths can see. As they grow close to the top, the diverse paths draw closer together, and climbers occasionally glimpse each other. Ultimately, though they begin from very different places at the foot of the mountain, and follow dissimilar paths, when they converge at the summit, the jubilant climbers share the same spectacular view.

In spiritual endeavors, a similar phenomenon is true. People who are born into very different cultures and religions are often like people who live in the foothills of a vast mountain with little understanding of those from the others sides. They may recognize no similarity between their faith and those in other parts of the world, and often declare that they have a monopoly on truth. Their religious understanding is secondhand and conceptual. Those of other faiths may be seen as infidels, pagans, or lost souls, and conflict between such religions is not uncommon. This notwithstanding, there are those from every time and culture who have yearned for something more, an intuitive truth that resonates deeply in the heart. While the teaching styles and practices employed in the great wisdom traditions may be diverse, the mystical truth they espouse offers convincing evidence that wholeness lies at the heart of all. Seekers who dwell on concepts and secondhand understanding can only climb so high—but those who depend on actual experience can reach the summit and share the same realization: the unimaginable freedom inherent in their true nature, nonduality.

Lost in translation

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Thought is not only the defining characteristic of our modern age, it is central to our very human existence. It is the tool with which we make sense of our surroundings, adapt to changing circumstances, and anticipate threats. It is also the basis for our relationships with other human beings, giving us the ability to understand the experiences and feelings of those around us. If we could not think, we would have no way to piece together the events of our lives. The world would be unintelligible. Without this extraordinary and essential tool, our species would never have evolved at all. As a species, we have relied on thought—together with language and the ability to communicate and record our thoughts—to frame the accumulated experience of our past, describe the dimensions of our future, and lay the foundation for our progress in all the innumerable fields of human endeavor. In a world of incessant flux, concepts lend a sense of constancy and predictability. Fixed and unambiguous, they transform chaotic and potentially overwhelming sensory input into a relatively consistent model of our world.

Thought may be indispensable to our existence in the world, but the efficiency with which it symbolically organizes that existence comes at a steep price. We communicate in words that condense experience into concepts, but when we forget that those concepts are arbitrary and begin to substitute our conceptual version of reality for actual experience of it, we lose contact with what is real. Confusing mental partitions with real divisions, we find ourselves in a world of racial stereotypes, religious fundamentalism, and nationalistic fervor, at odds with those who stand on the opposite side of any mental divide. It is like the leaves on one side of a tree attempting to annihilate their counterparts on the other, missing the fundamental oneness they all share. The living, breathing suchness of our world, the very ground of our being, is lost in translation to the language of thought. We take the map for the territory and can no longer see what is.

The function of thought can be compared to the process of collecting butterflies. If an entomologist catches one of these colorful insects and pins its motionless husk on a board, he may admire the beautiful pattern on the wings and label the unique characteristics of its physical form, but he cannot apprehend its being anymore; that essence is lost. There is little in the display box that suggests the magic of its flight and the way it once fluttered from one flower to the next. Thought and its labels cannot communicate the ineffable. Like the butterfly, much of life resists the classifications and definitions we depend on to figure things out; it can be understood only by actual experience, by being and feeling, not through abstract thought. We know what green beans taste like, but to convey in words the experience of eating them is impossible. Likewise, when we think of the music of Bach, words cannot convey our own listening experience to someone who has never heard his music. Can a mother express in words the experience of giving birth to her first child? Life is in the living.

Who are you?

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This seems to be a straightforward question, and one we have all answered countless times in our lives. We each have a personal story we know by heart and repeat often. It usually begins with the time and place of our birth, and where we went to school, and is followed with what we do for a living, if we are married or have any children, and so forth. Depending on who we are telling our story to, details about our interests, experiences, political views, religious affiliation, and retirement plans may be added to give a more complete picture. In our society, such sharing of personal information seems satisfactory and accurate to most everyone.

While such facts may be conventionally relevant, from the perspective of the world’s wisdom traditions they have nothing to do with your true nature. In the Buddhist tradition, for example, a question that teachers often pose to students is: “What is your original face before your grandparents were born?” This koan, or paradoxical riddle of sorts, insinuates a reality far deeper than the surface characteristics with which most people are preoccupied. It bypasses all the demographic data, everything we have learned, the personality we have developed, all the wealth we have amassed, and the many accomplishments we so eagerly show off. The perceived content of our lives is given no quarter in this question, and for that reason its meaning is beyond the reach of most who try to fathom it. But once our personal stories are dropped and our perceived importance forgotten, we can see that this ancient query is directing us to what we are, to what is—to life itself.

We are born of two mothers, given existence in two radically different ways. Our actual mother is life, and we are conceived in the human womb and nursed with the milk of wholeness. Our virtual mother is language; we are conceived in the thoughts and words of our people and nursed at the breast of our cultural and intellectual heritage. Ever after, we struggle with the conflicts and confusion that have plagued us all since our species learned to divide up what is and give names to its separate parts. The key to our spiritual dilemma is not to find God, but to find our true Self—to solve the riddle of our conflicted existence and to return to wholeness.

Vipassana

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When I began my spiritual quest almost two decades ago, I was unsure what direction to go. I knew I needed a practice, for it was already clear to me that reading and the teachings of others were limited in what they could do. I sought a practice that was proven, one that had passed the test of time. Vipassana, the form of meditation that the Buddha taught, was a logical choice. With a precision that rivals the controls modern science implements to attain valid results, this ancient science of the mind is so exact that for millennia incalculable numbers of practitioners have been able to generate the same results through their practice. While such practice does not produce spiritual realization, it can help us see through the false ideas that blind us to the truth.

Vipassana practice is based on mindful awareness, which means paying bare attention—bare of judgment, decision, or commentary—to what is happening to us and within us during every moment of experience. Progressing through a series of exercises under the guidance of an experienced teacher, we systematically examine every facet of what we believe our “self” to be. Observing how thoughts rise and fall on their own, for example, with no volitional participation helps the seeker to realize that they are not “his.” With practice and refined skills, we are able to discern that the self we construct out of form, feelings, perceptions, thoughts, and consciousness has no foundation in reality. One by one, the assumptions that have so long supported our erroneous belief in a permanent, independent self, are found to be groundless. What we always thought we were gradually dissolves like a cloud in the rays of the sun. Once we actually see this truth about the nature of experience, it becomes apparent that there is no abiding entity to be found.

Picture a piece of Swiss cheese. It typically has holes of all sizes and shapes in it. In your mind’s eye, pick out one hole. Notice its characteristics. Maybe it is bigger than the others around it; maybe it is deeper. It has existed since the cheese was made. Now imagine eating this piece of cheese, slowly nibbling away at the area surrounding the hole. Watch what happens. The hole slowly disappears. When all the cheese is gone, the hole is gone too. Where did it go? It was there a minute ago. You saw it, and even distinguished it from the others. But as you can see, in the truest sense, there never was a hole. There was only a relationship between the cheese and empty space. By labeling your perception, you created a concept of “hole” and gave it a sense of reality. This is exactly what happens with the self, or ego. The concept of “self” is given substance by the label we affix to a relationship between elements that are not the self—form, feelings, perceptions, thoughts, and consciousness. When we study this relationship carefully in vipassana meditation, we can see that there is only consciousness rising and falling with its objects. The ego is a construct, but not a reality. Now you see it, now you don’t.