What Do We Mean by Karma?

0:00Good morning everybody. This morning I would like to spend some time with the idea of karma, but maybe not karma in the way that we usually think about it. Often we hear the word karma, karma, what comes to mind is the traditional understanding of karma. The moral cause and effect system, the way I typically think of as the, you're going to get it system. For example, I do something that action has consequences and those consequences come back to me at some later point. If I act good, good things happen. If I act poorly, suffering follows. In this way of thinking karma is consequential, it unfolds over time and it's affected. It explains why I'm happy or unhappy, why things go well or poorly for me.

1:04And to be clear, this way of understanding karma isn't necessarily wrong, right? It's intuitive and it kind of makes a lot of sense and it's often the first way people encounter the teaching of karma. But this way of thinking about karma isn't actually, I think, how the Buddha usually talked about it. It also comes with a few of its own problems. One of them is that it assumes that we know what something needs in what it's called a full messed time, right? That this happened, therefore it must be good or bad. This suffering has occurred and therefore it must have been deserved. This success came, therefore I must have earned it. As many of you are well aware, I am pretty fond of the story about the farmer who's horse runs away. The neighbor says, how unfortunate the farmer replies, nah, who knows, the horse returns

2:05with wild horses. How fortunate, farmer replies, nah, who knows, the farmer's son breaks his legs, breaks his leg, how unfortunate, farmer replies, nah, who knows. The point of the story isn't that what happens doesn't really matter. It's that our view is always partial. We're always standing right in the middle of the things that are happening and not outside them. And yet, karma can quickly tempt us into believing that we see the whole picture. Another difficulty with karma is how easily this understanding of karma turns this inward in unskillful ways. Case in point. If I'm suffering, it must be because of something I did. If someone else is suffering, it must be their karma. Sometimes this can lead to resignation, such as saying things like, well, this is just my karma.

3:07And sometimes it can be cut and judgmental. Like, well, they got what they deserved. And finally, karma can start to feel like a thing, which I wish Curtis was on because that is a thing that we make him smile. So what do I mean by a fake? It becomes something we carry, something we accumulate, something that we are perpetually waiting to arrive. We can feel like something like a spiritual account balance that's always waiting to come do, which is, I think, interesting because Buddhism tends to spend a lot of time warning us about turning processes into things. So this morning, I went to offer a different way of understanding karma, one that I came across with my students and that has changed how I understand meditation as a practice. To do this, I want to start with a question. What if karma isn't about what happens to us?

4:09What if karma isn't about what happens after an action, but all of the things that happen before it? What if karma is the set of conditions already shaping how we see, feel, and respond before we start doing anything at all? So what if karma is our habits and our histories and our beliefs about ourselves in the world, our fears and our expectations? What if all of that is karma? Karma isn't a moral judgment, but the conditioning we accumulate over the course of our lives. It's not the something that we deserve, but the way our experiences have a learn to happen. And this is where the Buddha's teachings on intention become important.

5:14The Buddha often defined karma in terms of intention, as the movement of the mind toward or away from experiences. Non-intention is a plan or goal, but the subtle leaning that happens before an action, before we speak and before our thoughts really fully form. Intention kind of acts as the mind's inclination. It's the quiet kind of tilts of what you mean to do before you actually do it. It's the way our conditioning, all the things that have happened to us before, nudges toward grasping or resisting toward what we want to happen or what we don't want to happen. In this way, karma isn't what we do.

6:14Karma is the tendencies we have behind what we do, the things before what we do. You might say it like this. It isn't what happens to us. Karma is how we enter into what happens. From this perspective, karma isn't primarily concerned with explaining why pleasant or unpleasant events occur, why we suffer or why we don't. It's concerned only with suffering, with how suffering continues. This even pleasant experiences can lead us to suffering if they reinforce attachment and aversion, even success can deepen our reactivity. And reactivity is really what we are getting at here.

7:15Reactivity is the way our perceptions immediately turn into judgments. Reactivity is the way our sensations turn into stories. Reactivity is the way our experiences become about ourselves. And I will say, for me, this shows up most clearly with my irritation. I can feel it when a tiny spark of irritation arises, but it's always something small, something ordinary, and then before I even know it, my mind has built a whole narrative about it. I can build any conclusion about the situation, a conclusion about the other person, sometimes even conclusions about myself. And that is what karma is. It's not a dramatic manifestation of justice. It's not a mystical process outside the self.

8:19It's just the mind doing what it has learned to do. And this is where meditation, as a practice, can become very practical. Because when we sit on a cushion, we get to watch karma happening in real time. We get to see our thoughts arise, our sensations arise, all of our memories, our judgments, our plans and anxieties, and then, all those immediately, they turn into something we take to be reality, such as this is bad or this is good or this shouldn't be happening or this should be, this means something about who I am or who they are. All of these things arise in the moments and they turn into stories.

9:22And so meditation really isn't about stopping any of that necessarily from arising. It's about seeing what arises clearly enough that we don't have to make it into reality. Let's say that again, because it's real important. Meditation is about seeing what arises clearly enough that we don't have to take what arises and make it reality. And this is where I think the idea of a perception can be really helpful, even if the word itself is a weird word. The word literally means without perception added on, not the absence of seeing, but see before we add all of the things that we like to add to it. The meanings, the judgments, the stories, A perception is a no perception.

10:26It's perception before we turn it into reality. It's perception without all of our baggage. It's a perception without the stories we create and the stories we tell ourselves. And on the cushion, this looks pretty easy. Of autorizes, we notice it. And instead of following it or fighting it, we let it go. Same thing with sensations. We feel it without immediately turning it into a story or into a conclusion. The Buddha described this second part as the second era of fight. It's the suffering that we add when we react to what we're already experiencing. And each time we don't add that second era, something really important happens. We interrupt the momentum of karma.

11:28Not by force and not by suppression, but by not feeding our reactivity. And over time, this practice of interrupting the momentum of our karma. This practice begins to show up as space, kind of space between perception and our reaction to it. A space between sensations and the stories we create. A space between experience and the reality that we wish that it was. And these things are not in difference and they're not detachment, they're just space. And in that space, something becomes possible and something I think is really beautiful. We have the space to respond rather than react. We can act without being compelled by our previous karmas into actions dictated by those

12:36karmas. We get to meet reality more as it is, as independent, as independent as changing and finished. Kind of reality we then have access to is difficult to describe, but I like the term suchness or maybe something like immediacy or something like just this. Now reality is not special, it's not dramatic, it's just unrest, unattached. And from this perspective, awakening or liberation or enlightenment or nirvana isn't a state or bowl or some esoteric outside thing. It's just the cessation of your karmic reactivity, it's life continuing, it's conditions continuing,

13:45but it doesn't give suffering, the attachment, theversion, the same footing that it had before. And then we can start, then when we start to talk about eliminating karma, we're no longer talking about stopping actions, we're talking about ending the conditions that keep reactivity running, our stories, and stopping the conditions that cause us to act in ways that cause us to suffer. And then meditation is a way to practice that breaking the cycle of our learned karmic reactivity as it arises, never really perfectly and never really permanently, but enough to get a taste of what that freedom might look like. I'm not I think is what's karma is in reactivity and a perception.

14:46So that's what I got for you guys. Thank you. Long, but I don't think it's possible to talk about karma without going along. Thanks, Joe, that that gives me a lot to think about, and we made me discussing this for a few weeks, just between us, but three things came up for me. First, you're taught, you're mentioned that karma is not a thing that we carry, because in teravod thought it is, karma is what is reborn, not our personality or anything else, our karma is reborn, we carry it through life, and it becomes the next rebirth.

15:48I don't think there's anything wrong with it being a differing view, but I think you are correct. The Maya tradition is much less, they think that we carry. It is somehow related to the actions. In your discussion of karma being the things that not fully cause, but that set up our future actions, that's very interesting to me, because there's a really, even during the Buddha's life, there was a philosophical debate over our actions

16:49completely set by our karma, or are they not? Dr. Bashi, the divide was, our actions completely set by our karma, or our actions completely free of our karma, and the Buddha came down in the middle and said, our actions are influenced by our karma, but not necessarily set by them, but I think that falls with what you're saying, because our karma sets the ground from which we act. We still have free will within that to act against that karmic ground. To be there, you're coming down directly with the Buddha in that middle path between those

17:51two philosophical arguments. The third thing that came up for me was your last point. All I could think of was Moses addressing the burning bush and say, Lord, what is your name? And God responded, I am, and that's basically what you're saying. It is not, I do or anything else. It is, I am, I exist, I am within this reality. And all I could do is, wow, what a cool confluence of God saying, what are you, to an answer to, what are you, or who are you, saying, I am, I exist.

18:58That's a wonderful confluence to me. Thank you. That was a very thoughtful talk. Thank you. I remember a couple of weeks ago, I don't remember exactly what happened, but realizing how quickly your brain can infuse fear where there wasn't any. And when I was just enacting this week with my mom, my sister was coming over and her husband was going to drop her off on his way to work. And they never set a time, but he was just on his way to work. Well, in my mom's mind, he always worked 10 to 6. So when she wasn't there by 10 o'clock, my mom was worried. And the weather was bad and was there a car accident and blah, blah, blah. And here is his schedule that day was 11 to 7, and after some texts and everything she came and everything was fine.

19:59And there was simply a miscommunication. And again, you know, just a miscommunication can cause so much something terrible happened. And the other thing is I did not grow up luckily with anyone in my immediate family who was addicted to alcohol, to drugs. And obviously if it were easy to stop those behaviors, people would stop those behaviors. And sometimes I think we have to remember some people, this is where judgment comes in. We have to remember some people were not given the tools or need help with the tools to fix their karma and a lot of it is beyond our understanding if you've never been through

21:06it. No, I think, particularly, additions are a good way of kind of entering into this, looking at karma differently, right? Because the question I had with karma is I would do something like, why did I do, or why did I feel that, or what, what was that? And for those of you that are wondering, this presentation of karma is not mine. It is by a gentleman named David Kolupahana who is required reading for us. And if you would like to read it, it is in a book called Buddhist Philosophy. And it is very technical and very difficult. And so if you thought my Dharma talk was hard to follow, I will encourage you to read

22:08that. But the reason I brought up, I think your addiction thing is apt, is that we learn all of these habits and predispositions and we are so usually unaware of them that when we start to act, it comes from this pool of ways that we have acted before. And then we start to act in ways that cause us to feel ways that we sometimes want to, sometimes don't want to. But in ways that we really do have more control over than we think that we do. If we can realize that our actions a lot of times are predicated on this, what we'll call karma now, that we bring into every situation and then apply to things that then cause us to react to things in ways that we have been habituated into.

23:14The media thought that comes into mind sometimes is my mother. Like, I love my mother. She's a great woman. But when she comes at me sometimes or when she just proposes something from the vast history of our interactions together, our karma together, I will then react to her in ways that aren't always appropriate, that are based on what my perceptions are for things that have all happened before, not based on this interaction or what is occurring in this moment in time, but based on this history of actions. And then I will treat her in a way that will cause her to act in ways that I am used to, in ways that I am comfortable with that reinforce all those predispositions. And in that way, I am perpetuating the cycle of karma, right? I am then reacting to her in a way that will cause her to react in a way that will feed into this cycle. And before I know it, I will be irritated.

24:16She will have done nothing. It will be like, well, there's my mom acting like, oh, it's your take. And most of the time I am completely oblivious to this process. And most of you probably are as well. You have no idea why you're acting and reacting to certain places, events, sensations until the train is well left the station and you have arrived at whatever feeling that you were predisposed to feel. But the good news is that with meditation, we can see these things happening as they are occurring and we can stop them. And if we can stop them, then that karma doesn't have to be a self-perpetuating cycle. We can begin to whittle away at it so that we can build karma that causes us to react in better ways or the better thing is respond as opposed to react.

25:18And this is, if you don't like to think about it in Buddhist terms, you could think of this in psychological terms, right? This is your mind's reactivity based on all of the different neurons and synapses that you've created that when a situation that is similar to something has happened, all of these pathways light up because they're the ones that light up the way they did before. And all of a sudden, you are at X synapse when you would prefer to be at Y synapse. But if you can break down this automatic conditioning, you can get to where you want. But it takes a process and that process is meditation. I just want to follow up with what you were just saying, Joe. I struggle with anxiety and one of the things that I've learned is that part of your amygdala

26:25just can override everything. And there's a famous metaphor about your brain thinking it's something that snaps in the blood and you think that it's a bear, but actually it's just your foot snapping at a twig. And what has helped me is specific anxiety exercises, which are built on scientific principles, but those scientific principles also marry very well with Buddhist principles, which is, I think, why a lot of people find it to be effective. But yeah, it's always like a, you know, cause and condition. It's never one thing that leads to a, you know, reactivity that is something that I don't find being very pleasant and causing myself suffering, as well as the suffering of others.

27:33And as we also, we often talk about this driving is a great opportunity to practice, to practice this, regardless of what's going on. And whether you're driving and it's fine or you're driving and you're stuck in traffic or the person in front of you is really slow. But at any rate, I found it to be particularly effective, well, anyway, that's all I have to share right now. So thank you. Oh, thank you, thank you for your contribution. I'm thinking about, especially one of the things when Glenn mentioned how the Buddha followed like if I'm kind of in the middle of how much control you have when it comes to karma, the physicality of it. And we could just kind of started touching on that in some of the comments you just talked about neurons and everything, but I'm thinking about both like nature and nurture

28:43and how much control you have over it. So we like to begin our heads about it and it's very like the way we were talking about it initially was very much mind over matter in some ways. I don't think that's the way you meant it, but I was thinking about like the physicality of an extreme case, like Phineas Gage, who he's a key case in neurology and understanding the brain, where he was this wonderful foreman, like great with people, his company loved him, all his workers loved him. And then one day he was tamping down a rod for some explosives and it accidentally went off and went through his brain. And he survived. And afterwards he was a completely different person and it was literally because a portion of his brain had been damaged and destroyed and that's not something that he could control. But it's somehow still part of it and just thinking about how the physical world and

29:45our environment can put limits on what or how much we can influence. I want to think about it some more, but it's just recognizing that those habits, those things that set the grounds, part of that is our physical conditions and some of that we have control over and some of it we don't. So how much it's about influencing and recognizing that as part of this idea around karma and putting more nuance in it, because I think as who was that Mary earlier with the addiction, which is both like physical and mental and influenced by environment and society, there's lots of big thoughts here.

30:45And then also the level you've been talking about at very individual level because that's where we have the opportunity to impact it in a lot of ways and where we do a lot of our work. But almost the idea of also societal level karma, societal level habits that no one person necessarily creates, but the conglomeration makes and it's hard to step away from. So kind of thinking about both the physical, personal physical in your body, how karma is ingrained physically in your body and then also kind of ingrained in culture and society as well. Yeah, so those were the thoughts going through my head and I'll leave it there. Yeah, on a side note, the funniest thing I've always felt was kind of suspects because

31:57the way the story is told by most psychological journeys is he was this great guy with no context before and then this thing happened and then he was completely different story end. And that always, it seems to, it seems to fit a narrative that's especially with that era of psychology makes me worry and so, but the premise will say is true and that's, it is possible that the brain has quite a bit of physical, but the brain is, it is, as far as environment goes, is wire to do certain things. I think what the Buddha got at is that we have more control that we think and it is, even if it's not complete control, is that fair, you think?

32:58Oh, yeah, that's the part where Glenn's comment that the Buddha came down sort of in the middle. You don't have full control, but you also have more than you think because studying aside, yeah, there's lots of things in psychiatry and that time and age, setting aside Phineas, gay, even though it was probably a major change in personality, whether he was a good person to begin with or not, you could even just say lobotomies that a lot of women were subjected to in a certain period, certainly change how they were able to access the world, but yes, in spirit is it? No, go ahead, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt. Yeah, no, it's, I have a tendency to be in my head in one of the things I've been working on is recognizing that physicality and then also as Beth said, a lot of the anxiety exercises and things where you need to like refer back to your body and functions that are actually going in it, on in it and that helps.

33:59So just thinking about how this isn't just thought processes, but this is actual like physical things going on in the world in your body and how, yeah, how changes to those can impact how I guess karma unplays, how much control you have, yeah, just looking at it as a larger process. I don't disagree with you, that's what I'm saying, but it's just, it's the thing that's coming up. Yeah, and I don't, I don't, I'm not, this isn't, this is just there. I think the popped into my head and I can't go on without saying something since my brain works, hot take care, Buddha said that liberation was available to all of us, right? Ian's, in this conception, the elimination of reactivity is what nirvana is, is what

35:05liberation is, so that I think that the elimination of reactivity, the mind over matter thing, is a thing that is available to all of us, and is, I don't know how I feel about that, I don't really want to discuss it right here, I was thinking like, yeah, I think, I think the Buddha was saying that this is a thing that you can do no matter what, no matter what your circumstances were, if you had a lobotomy, you could still access it, if you were born in X, Y or Z condition, you can still get to the point of zero reactivity, but I don't know that for sure. I'm not, I was just thinking of it as a thought experiment, so sorry, but then I said it, I feel better, yeah, about the finniest thing, I think the same thing happens when people

36:08die, like, especially young people, it's a very sad thing, and suddenly the people they went to high school with, even if they bullied someone, they're just a saint, and to me, that's okay, you want to remember the good in someone, but it could be a situation like this. Has anybody not said something that would like to say something? I'll mention Beth putting to the chant, it's not survival of the fittest, it's survival of the nurtured Tara Brock said that, and Jerry who's left us this, thanks for the talk, Gerald. Yes, that is, yeah, that's a quote by Tara Brock. Which I find to be very illuminating and comforting. Hi, okay. I will, the one thing I wanted to say at the end is that the version of the harcester

37:14trip that we tend to read the most, the second version by day, the linchpin of his version is the residing and receptive emptiness, and then it gives the list of ways of what I think are understanding our reactivity. And so for those of you that wish to endeavor to understand this a little bit better, I would say, look at the second version of the harcester trip and look at what that receptive emptiness versus reactivity looks like, and see how your mind does all of these things in order to get to conclusions that we are, I think, chronically reinforced. So with that, I want to thank you all for this lovely talk, and we will go ahead and close