A Discussion About Karma

The subject of karma can be broken into four parts for discussion: the rhythm or pattern by which karma operates (Karmic Pattern); the way karma functions as a result (Karmic Result); the way a karma is actually created (Karma Creation); and the way karma builds interconnections between beings (Karmic Interconnections). This piece works through the first of these, the karmic pattern, in the form of a teaching dialogue.

The karmic seed and its surrounding conditions

Suppose we take the energy unit that makes up 'you' as being, in the whole universe, one of a kind: unique. We can't actually go looking for another energy exactly like it elsewhere, but that's not the point here. This uniquely-natured energy unit can be called the karmic seed.

Around that karmic seed sits an environment: the nature of craving, the nature of one's thoughts, the surrounding natural world, one's setting, one's country, one's terrain: all of this belongs to it too. Put simply, where one being is standing on this earth, no other being can stand in that exact same spot, and because of that alone, the root nature of what surrounds it is already different for each one. So both the karmic seed and its surrounding environment carry their own distinct uniqueness. It is these two factors together that give rise to what can be called a Karmic Pattern, and that pattern belongs specifically to the individual; it is theirs alone.

Where does the karmic seed first come from?

Asked where the karmic seed first arises in the universe, the teacher in this dialogue answers that this cannot really be traced: because understanding only becomes possible from the point where the seed has already arisen. We cannot describe the moment prior to the very first arising of a thought; understanding is only possible from the point the thought arises. In the same way, a pen only becomes something you can investigate once the pen already exists: you can't have a thought about investigating a pen before the pen itself appears. In the same way, once karma is taken as the foundation, the thought to investigate it can only arise afterward; the field of mind (citta) only begins from that point on.

This is also why, the teacher notes, one cannot go 'beyond' this world-system (sakvala): the field within which a given world-system arises is what allows both the beings and the matter within that world-system to come into being at all. Because of this, one cannot pass from that field into a different world-system's field, or beyond this world-system altogether: there is nowhere for matter built on this field to stand once that field is absent, and even light itself breaks apart past that boundary. A thought that one 'should go beyond this' can certainly arise, but no workable theory for actually doing so presents itself, unless one becomes an extraordinarily rare being capable of extending one's own mind beyond the world-system itself. Otherwise, within the field this teaching is working in, it does not appear possible.

How the pattern becomes a flow

Asked whether the surrounding conditions, environment, mind, formations, self-clinging, are themselves separately built up within the subject of karma, the teacher says no: this all has to be taken together, because the discussion is specifically about how the pattern arises. Just as discussing a bean pod requires first taking the bean seed itself, and the surrounding conditions, before the pod can be discussed at all: without the bean seed, there is nothing to discuss. Any subject needs a frame to be discussed within.

The karmic seed and its environment come together, and adapting to one another, give rise to the pattern. The karmic seed itself is treated as a form of energy, a root, not itself called 'the pattern'. According to that pattern, further karmic seeds arise, and further environments form correspondingly, giving rise to a continuing momentum that travels within the pattern.

Asked to clarify how further karmic seeds arise: just as a bean pod, once formed, gives rise to further seeds within itself, the pattern does not simply sit still once it has arisen: a flow that travels within that pattern also arises. From energies, a pattern arises, and within that pattern, a flow also arises. From that starting point, as circumstances and events unfold, the flow keeps changing and changing. It is within this that beings, individuals, and selves come together as one, though 'self' isn't quite the right word for it; it's more a nature specific to that flow. If several people come together and start talking, their combined flow changes accordingly, and from then on the flow begins to behave together with whatever is present in that setting. Where a pattern is especially strong, it resists this kind of change, and the flow continues to be dominated by that person's own established pattern.

Redirecting a karmic path without erasing the pattern

Asked how, within this framework, someone changes their karmic path (karma patha), or is freed from it: what changes is one's movement within the pattern: specifically, the movement of one's ego, one's sense of 'I', through that pattern. This is not the same dimension as the flow itself; the flow is simply a nature that has arisen. Self-clinging builds up centred on that flow, and it is centred on the flow, not on the pattern itself. So the movement of the ego along the karmic path is a separate matter from the flow. Self-clinging is focused within the flow, and when self-clinging connects with that flow, it can redirect the flow.

Every karmic path built up this way is, by nature, unwholesome, yet even an act as ordinary as preparing and offering alms food can, done with mindfulness, become a powerful wholesome karmic path. Once this wholesome path becomes strong enough, one is naturally freed from other, unwholesome karmic paths: because preparing the offering mindfully lets a person see themselves clearly, see how their own self-clinging builds up. Because of this, the newly forming karmic path does not become unwholesome. Mindfulness, in this way, begins to build itself primarily through this fresh, wholesome karmic path. Anger or greed that arises along the way becomes visible to that same mindfulness, and gradually, as this karmic path strengthens, such unwholesome states stop forming. Over time, mindfulness grows strong enough that self-clinging becomes visible in other situations too, and eventually, the whole karmic path has changed, becoming a wholesome one. A karmic path, then, is something that can be changed through understanding. Without that understanding, what forms instead are unwholesome karmic paths. Karmic paths are rather like streets; the path and the flow discussed earlier are two different things.

Once someone is freed from a karmic path, if the flow was previously bound up with ego, that flow no longer follows the ego's direction. Take, for instance, doing something for the sake of all beings in the world: qualities like compassion grow, and the flow that had been built around the ego is redirected elsewhere, separating the ego out from that flow. This becomes a distinct karmic path in itself. As a separate flow forms this way, the ego is simply left to dissolve on its own: not because ego has been removed outright, but because it stops being fed. Ego remains, in a sense, but has nowhere left to go, no work left to do; self-clinging is still felt, but is no longer nourished. As this new direction takes over, moments where self-clinging surfaces become clearly visible, and as good qualities strengthen, self-clinging dissolves in a steady, gradual way. Asked what becomes of the earlier karmic path once this happens, there's no clean answer: it is the same river, redirected into a different course; the Mahaweli river, redirected elsewhere, is still the Mahaweli river, and yet, redirected, it is no longer travelling the same course.

What can, and can't, be changed

Asked whether redirecting a karmic path affects the karmic pattern itself: no. The pattern is not something that can easily be changed by this. It was set at the very point the karmic seed itself arose, and cannot be altered; nor can the person themselves consciously choose to alter it, because that pattern simply is them. What can be changed is the connection between self-clinging and the flow that runs through that pattern; nothing changes about the ego itself directly: it is simply left, over time, to dissolve. This is not something everyone is capable of; it requires a certain quality or fitness already present in the person.

What redirects someone's flow, in the end, is having seen their own endpoint clearly: that is what is distinctive about it. Simply redirecting the flow without that vision accomplishes nothing. It is upon seeing, through omniscient knowledge, that 'this being should come to completion at this point,' that the flow is redirected there. Once redirected in that way, the process is complete: there is nothing further to do; there is only the path ahead to walk. In worldly life, once someone genuinely reaches that endpoint, the result is already whole and complete: nothing further needs to be done. This, in truth, is also what Buddhahood itself is like; what belongs to it is the Bodhisattva path. Once Buddhahood is attained, that particular process is complete, though becoming a Buddha in this sense does not mean passing into final nirvana immediately, nor does it mean never being reborn again. Rather, once a being has built their own karmic pattern and achieved that endpoint, that particular journey is finished. This is what bodhicitta accomplishes: through bodhicitta, that endpoint is built, both its beginning and its end, and from that point there is no possibility of straying from that path; none of the four states of misery remain a possibility. The being reaches completion at the very point envisioned through omniscient knowledge. Attaining a moment of bodhicitta is no small matter: a Buddha has to feel something, for some reason, in a way that cannot be reduced to a simple formula. Within that feeling, something happens in the Buddha rather like kneeling before the other person; some sincere, pure quality in the other person leaves the Buddha, in a manner of speaking, without recourse: moved to the point of surrender. It is within that event that bodhicitta arises in the person whose sincere, pure cause gave rise to it. There is no simple instruction for making that happen; that is precisely why attaining a moment of bodhicitta is said to be so rare.

Asked whether this point where the energy flow settles to zero can be called the "middle sphere" (madhya mandala): often, on the path to seeing nirvana, no such energy grows for most people at all: it is only in those who have developed the four bases of psychic power (iddhipada) that an energy of this kind grows. For everyone else, the path is instead one of being released from energy altogether. That is: an energy of this kind does exist, as something present in the universe generally, but the person who once thought of it as "theirs" has ceased to exist: rather like building a house, finishing everything, and then leaving; the house still stands exactly as it was, but the person who lived there is no longer there. Even so, for those who have specifically cultivated this energy, something called the middle sphere becomes necessary in order to pass into final nirvana. This arises together with growing insight: as insight (vipassana) and direct, as-it-really-is knowledge (yatha-bhuta-nana) develop, energy can grow relative to the mind (citta) in this way. This does not happen to everyone who develops insight or wisdom-vision; it happens only to those who have developed iddhipada.

Asked whether, once someone completes their karmic path in this way, the karmic pattern still remains as a form of energy: yes. The karmic pattern remains as energy. The universe holds boundless, immeasurable energies of this kind; they existed in the universe before we were even born. The ground existed before we were born too: the mistake was only ever in thinking of it as "ours." It is the same kind of thing with the pattern.

Asked whether, when the unique entity first arises, the pattern arises newly together with it, as something new in the universe: no. The entity is what already existed; it is taken exactly as it was. It is through that entity coming together with conditions in its environment that the pattern arises. We come together on top of an already-existing pattern. Once a person ceases, the pattern continues to exist together with the nature of the universe; it cannot be destroyed. What cannot be destroyed there is not "the self", but Buddhas and pratyekabuddhas do make use of it, in order to raise their wisdom higher. In the end, a Buddha does have to destroy it. Even the karmic pattern, even the unique entity, gets used in this way; it is drawn back to its root, broken down, taken inward. Because a Buddha makes use of this field in that way, these things exist, relative to a Buddha, built up as forms of energy, and in the end, a Buddha has to destroy them. This happens through mechanisms and principles such as final passing (parinirvana) and the middle sphere.

Karmic Result: how karma functions as an outcome

A flow travels within the karmic pattern. Within this pattern and its flow, founded on mental formations (sankhara), ego, clinging, and consciousness, a distinct field of existence arises, and once it has arisen, both the karmic pattern and the flow within it are simply taken as nature. This is exactly what is meant by the nature we call "a being", or a being's nature.

Our blood circulating, our heart beating, the functioning of our kidneys, the functioning of the nervous system: these are all, as a being, simply our nature. In exactly the same way, clinging, ego, and defilements are equally our nature, as a being. The being does not realise that this karmic pattern, and the flow travelling within it, which arose as its foundation, arose because of itself: the dependently-arising nature by which one thing gives rise to the next is not understood by the being. Within this ongoing process, once these mechanisms become engaged, each element of that system becomes something we feel.

Suppose, right now, four people happen to meet and start talking. There is, in this moment, some similarity in how each of their karmic natures has built up: that is exactly why they came to meet this way. Something forms within that meeting; what forms can be wholesome, or it can be unwholesome. A being meets others, along this journey, in a way that corresponds to this process. This is a nature that belongs to being a being; every being has this. This is exactly why the occasion for a result (vipaka) comes to form at all. It becomes an actual result once the being takes hold of that occasion: beings take hold of these occasions and experience them in many different ways, and the result changes according to how it is experienced.

If, at some point, someone becomes able to recognise this simply as nature, the problem ends there. Everything is still felt, rather like a boat on water rising and falling with the waves, but if it can be seen simply as nature, there is no longer a problem. In truth, there is no such thing as "result" on its own. Result exists only relative to ego. When something the ego likes is received, it is taken as a good result; when something the ego dislikes is received, or something unwanted arrives, it is taken as a bad result. That is exactly how the idea of "result" comes to be built.

Consider water flowing down a stream, with a rock sitting in the middle of it. What does the water do? It doesn't go breaking the rock apart. It simply strikes the rock and deflects, flowing on elsewhere. We call that the nature of water. Our own situation is exactly the same. Suppose someone strikes you. That, too, is simply nature acting within itself: there is no such thing, in that nature itself, as "striking" or "killing" in the moral sense. But the person on the receiving end gathers it up differently: "they hit me, they insulted me, they humiliated me." That is precisely where the difference lies. The whole concept of "result" is built up exactly along these lines.

Once one karmic seed has arisen, further things grow through it: further seeds arise, and new environments form around them. Given this nature of seeds, there exists a whole range of karmic seeds capable of bringing a being to further occasions for result, and a whole range of corresponding environments. Whether riding a bus, walking along a road on foot, or doing some task in one's own garden, karma relevant to that occasion forms accordingly in each of these situations. Wherever the occasion for a result is set to form, that occasion forms the moment the relevant environment is in place. But if one never enters such an environment, that occasion simply does not form. For someone established within the Dhamma, the way results come to form changes, precisely for reasons like this. The best example of this is the story of Angulimala. Though he was a murderer before, having become an arahant and gone forth as a monk, a great many of those occasions for result were averted altogether. And even where some occasions for result did still form, because he was an arahant, taking hold of them as "results" in the personal sense was also averted. Something similar happens after an arahant subsequently attains bodhi. Through this, as many occasions as possible are created for wholesome results specifically.

Asked whether seeing things simply as nature, in this way, frees a person from both karma and its result altogether: for a Buddha, and equally for an arahant, this operates in exactly the same way as anyone else: everything is still present. The difference is that they do not take hold of it as "result."

Karma Creation: how a karma is actually created

We have now covered how a unique entity coming together with its environment gives rise to a karmic pattern; how, from that, a flow arises within the pattern; and how karma then operates founded on the events and principles built up on top of that. "Creating" karma is a further, distinct matter.

In this matter of creating karma, the energy of a Buddha who has developed the bases of psychic power (iddhipada) grows relative to beings. A Buddha is able to move within that energy. Because of that capacity to move within it, a Buddha has the ability to bring principles together and create a given karma. Put simply, a Buddha is able to build entanglement deliberately: planning these things out through omniscient knowledge and then carrying them out. What makes this possible is time as a principle; mixing time together with other principles makes it possible to construct the moment at which a given reaction actually takes place.

"Creating" karma, in this sense, is an unusual kind of act. Take two stones: strike them together, and fire appears. Both stones existed already, and the potential for fire existed within them already, but simply having the stones, and having that potential present, does not by itself do the work of striking them together and lighting the fire. Creating karma is rather like that act of striking, of lighting: it happens by bringing together facts and conditions that are already present and connecting them through cause and effect.

Karma can be set in motion for various purposes in this way: including, for instance, for the flourishing of the Sasana. This means constructing how far, and for how long, the community built up around past, present, and future bodhisattvas carries the teaching forward: building the entanglement for that specifically. This is an extremely powerful thing to be able to do.

All of us create karma, all the time. What we call wholesome karma is simply the occasion given to us to create karma for ourselves in a wholesome way. Acting in line with the underlying principle produces a wholesome result; acting against that principle sets an unwholesome result in motion. Everyone does this, constantly: the difference is that most people cannot see the underlying mechanism at work. Once that mechanism has been seen and deliberately set up for someone, there is nothing left to do except carry it out.

Because a Buddha can move within that energy in this way, the underlying principle we call karma becomes clearly visible, and it becomes possible to construct it as well. Such things exist. This all takes place through what might be called relative development.

Asked whether this matter of "karma creation" relates to the idea of freeing a being from samsara: no, not exactly. In truth, there is no such thing, in the literal sense, as "freeing a being from samsara." Put in terms of a being's own wellbeing, though, this is exactly right. Phrases like "seeing nirvana" and "being freed from samsara" are expressions that came out of Sri Lankan society specifically; there is no such literal thing as either. If this is understood in this present moment, one can cross over samsara in this very moment: one can cross over one's own system of mental formations (sankhara) right now.

Karmic Interconnections: how karma builds connections between beings

If four people are discussing karma together, what is meant here is something like: how did the four of us end up bound together, according to karma, in order to have this very discussion? What matters here is how a being connects, in a manner specific to that individual, through the karmic pattern and through karma itself, building interconnections in the process. Buddha can be described as a nature entirely freed from all karma; the nature of Buddha-knowledge is a state independent of karma. It is only from that vantage point that karma can actually be seen: otherwise, the behaviour of karma cannot be seen at all. When I speak about karma while standing inside karma myself, I can only speak about it relative to myself; it is inherently personal. It is only once one is freed from all of this, seeing from outside it entirely, that this thing called karma is actually felt for what it is.

To begin with, a unique entity coming together with its environment gives rise to a karmic pattern. As that pattern strengthens, a karmic flow arises together with it. What has just been described is a pattern and a flow arising founded on a single entity: this is one world. There are a great many more like this. This, together, is the world of beings: this is a being's matrix. As this keeps building up, something specific happens: as patterns of this kind come to resemble one another, many of them, quite often, draw together and build up jointly. Similar things gather through attraction and build up together, while opposite things build up through repulsion. The principle at work here is that once something like this has arisen, the reactions produced through both similar and opposite influences cause it to become further empowered: what happens is that the force already present within it simply increases. That is the principle at work.

Once this is taken as a single thing, it becomes impossible to calculate how many further formations of similar and opposite kinds relate to it. But if our own mental faculties are weak, if our understanding and wisdom sit at a low level, we turn these things into problems for ourselves. We struggle to resolve them. Struggling to resolve them turns us into someone lacking understanding: not knowing that this is simply how the principle works. Trying to go and resolve this world-principle is not a good idea.

Take a flowing stream again, with a rock in it: the water strikes the rock and is redirected elsewhere. But if the flowing water instead struggles to go and change the rock, it becomes entangled with it. In the same way, a pen writes the way a pen is built to write; you sit the way a chair is built to be sat in; you sleep the way a bed is built to be slept in. For the most part, we exist according to how things already are. But there are certain matters where we do need to change things relative to ourselves, and when we make that kind of change, reactions arise, relative to that particular rhythm, within the system that has built up as our world. This, too, is simply dharmata: a natural principle.

What is Buddha-nature? It is allowing this world to exist exactly as it exists, exactly as it presents itself, allowing whatever nature is present to remain as it is. If something is going to burn, let it burn. If people are going to fight, let them fight. If people are going to praise, let them praise. None of it becomes entangled with anything. That is precisely Buddha-nature. Wisdom (prajna), here, means bringing about the cessation (nirodha) of whatever reactions arise from this. For someone abiding in Buddha-nature, whatever happens is simply not their concern: only if a genuine cause arises for them to engage with it does it become relevant, and only then do they move in the direction of resolving it. Otherwise, it is rather like getting into a boat and travelling in the direction the river is already flowing.

Buddha-knowledge (Buddha-nana), then, means seeing this entire totality at once, and, to whatever degree is needed, acting to manage and direct it.

There is no fixed rule at all for how these influences come to affect a being. Because of this, only principles, dharmata, can really be spoken of here.

All of this arises for you relative to being a human being. It is on the foundation of being a human being that all of this builds up for you at all. Remove the frame of being a human being, and none of this exists in the first place.