People often wonder if what happens to us now always comes from causes created in past lives or can it also be from, say, when we were six years old?
First of all, let’s remind ourselves of the big picture: We’ve got this consciousness, this mind, this mental continuum as they call it, this river of mental moments that goes back and back and back and back: it doesn’t come from a creator; it doesn’t just manifest out of the blue; and it doesn’t come from our parents. It comes into this life fully programmed by its own past, and then it continues after we die. It’s like this for all the countless mind-possessors, sentient beings. This is the Buddha’s observation.
This natural law of karma – Buddha didn’t make it up; he doesn’t run it; no one runs it; it’s not punishment; it’s not reward – this natural law of cause and effect that runs our minds, or, if you like, within which our minds run, is such that every millisecond of what we think and do and say programs us, leaves seeds in our mind, and is in fact the very process that produces the person we become.
We understand this clearly when it comes to our skills and knowledge: we know that every single thing we think and do and say in relation to music, let’s say, is the process that determines the musician we become.
Obviously, everything you do right now in relation to music does actually bring results right now; there’s no question. If you practiced the C major scale yesterday, yesterday’s playing definitely impacts upon your playing it better today.
But is today’s playing a direct result of yesterday’s playing? This is not just splitting hairs; it’s an important point. The main cause of being able to be a musician didn’t come out of the blue, or from our mother; it is a habit that we brought with us into this life. And today’s playing sows further seeds in the mind that continue to ripen as the habit to keep playing, both now and in future lives.
Same with love, kindness, or playing football. We come into life programmed with those habits, and then we continue to do or say or think them.
Mr. Hitler came into his Austrian mother’s womb fully programmed with his own tendencies from past lifetimes. His mother didn’t create him, and he certainly didn’t start as a blank slate and then his wicked mother harmed him or the naughty Jewish people upset him, and then he went and killed millions of people. So illogical!
Also, all the people he harmed as well as those he liked had strong history with him from past lives. Karma goes over many lifetimes, especially when it brings massive groups of people together: it’s hugely impactful.
Back to the question. Now, indeed, in this life, we do certain things that bring results – but when do these seeds ripen? This is where a garden is a good example.
Let’s say you decide to put fertilizer in your garden and then one day a rose pops up. If we don’t understand the natural law of botany we would tend to think, “Oh, well, fertilizer must be the cause of the rose.” But knowing botany, we know that there was a seed there from weeks ago.
So if you lie today and then someone lies back to you, we tend to think that our present lying was the cause. No. Our present lying is the fertilizer that activates the ripening of a seed in your mind from twenty lives ago, say. And, of course, today’s lying is also a seed that will ripen as various fruits in the future, not to mention increasing the habit to lie right now.
In other words, what we do in this life acts as a catalyst to ripen what seeds are already there from the past, and then, not only that, what we do in this life sows seeds that will ripen again in future lives. So it’s this constant process, you know?
They say it’s only very few actions, like really heavy, good or bad, actions that might actually bring the karmic result in this life: if you kill your mother, with whom we have powerful karmic connections, that could be a karma that might even ripen as you getting harmed in this life, as a direct result. But mostly what we do now is like a fertilizer for what’s already there, and then those seeds we plant now will ripen in the future as actual results.
Clearly it’s an incredibly subtle process. And, remember, it’s a natural law – we find this difficult to get our heads around because we’re so used to thinking of it all in a punitive way: punishment and reward. We think that someone’s out there running the show! We love our conspiracy theories!