Karma   (Pa. Kamma)

Inseparable from the rise of fall of the various subjective worlds which we all live within and experience is the notion of karma that entails the linking of past and future. In the Western world "karma" has popularly come to mean "fate" or "destiny." Granted, there is a great deal of predetermination implied, but there is also a nearly equal amount of free-will or self-determination.

At the inception of each physical birth, every mortal faces certain predetermined factors. Our genetic traits upon birth can be said to be a primary form of inherited karma. Whether we like it our not our skin color, blood types, predilection for certain diseases, etc. are the result of the karma of our forbearers. Many of them secretly dwell within us like delayed time-bombs. As many times as we encounter the cycle of "birth and death" within this lifetime, we can never be certain when we will not encounter the explosive genetic effects of such past karma.

The environment into which we are born is also a result of past karma. Whether we are born in America or Asia, of rich parents or poor, will affect our future "re-births". We also are endlessly prone to the effects (karma) of the influence of others. Whether a teacher likes you or dislikes you will influence your future; in fact whether someone likes or dislikes your parents will influence your future ... etc. The burden of karma is heavy and it comes in all directions -- influencing any "birth and rebirth" that we experience within this life. Yet, despite all, there is a large area remaining for the exercise of our free will -- and that is to be discovered in "how we respond" to what we have been dealt with in life.

The Buddhist teaching of karma allows us a measure of free will - yet in the existentialist philosophical sense, that free will entails great responsibilities. For every choice that we make, influences our future. We are born and "reincarnated" countless times during what can be termed "this earthly existence" yet every time we rise up, we not only have the albatross of the past haunting us, but also the results of our own past choices act as equal specters to determine our future.

For every choice we make, there is a result (karma). If we choose to become academics and enter graduate school, we are committed to the results of our choice -- even if we suddenly have the dream to become an astronaut or sufficient disillusion to decide to become an honest gas station attendant. The spouse we choose, the house we choose, and the debts that we accumulate both morally and financially -- that is all part of the karma that will influence our future "lives". It is what binds us "to what we are" and like the myth of Eternal Return - we have the tendency to perpetuate our mistakes and forever repeat them.

To briefly summarize, the tragedy of human existence becomes a triangular relationship between 1) our finite human impermanent condition, 2) as we are finite and impermanent, we wish to cling to and possess the finite and impermanent around us to solidify and confirm the nature of our false view of existence, and 3) lastly, since the above futile efforts will never succeed, we encounter endless suffering. It is an inexorable vicious cycle that leads to countless "rebirths" resulting from the same misconceived views that will entail future suffering. Yet how can we escape this vicious cycle?

The historical Buddha set forth the teaching of the Middle Way as the means to overcome the false notion of Self that endlessly perpetuates our past mistakes. The Middle Way counseled the avoidance of all extremes -- of hedonism as well as asceticism - that confront our choice daily. By this means it was believed that the vicious cycle endlessly accumulating suffering could be broken - for even "suffering" was acknowledged to be subject to the law of "whatever arises, or has a beginning, must also cease, or have an ending. And the mind always was the stereological key to victory over the false notion of Self.

In Gassho,