The general idea of karma, this law of karma, is that every millisecond of what we think and do and say – every millisecond, without exception, of what we think and do and say – is the very process that produces the person we become, moment by moment, now and in the future, you know? As His Holiness says, “It’s like self-creation.” It’s the simplest way to put it.
This is very shocking to us, because instinctively we have a view that we’re some kind of innocent victim who didn’t ask to get born, and therefore it’s not our fault. I mean, that’s the energy of ego, we know this.
Basically Buddha says we are the creators of ourselves. He has observed this – but the Hindus before him had already presented this as reality; they, like Buddha, had observed it in their own minds, with their own minds at a subtle level.
This law of karma is a natural law – it’s a natural law – and that’s the thing to remember if we’re trying to be Buddhist. And that means that it’s not made up by anyone, no one runs it, and it’s not punishment and reward, which is exactly how we think about it!
There’s no equivalent in the creator religions. But in Christianity and the other creator philosophical views, there’s God’s law. This is the major point, isn’t it – it’s God’s law: God is the creator, God is the source of the universe, God is the source of me – and God, therefore, is the source of the rules.
Buddha’s got his little list of 10 don’ts: don’t kill, don’t steal, don’t lie, don’t jump on the wrong partner and so forth – at the very beginning of Buddhist practice, you’re going to hear these. Well, Jesus has the same – we can see they’re like a similar list, 10 of them.
But the fundamental difference, the huge difference, is the reason underlying the instructions.
Now, when someone says, “Don’t do this,” you ought to ask the question, “Why not?” They should have a logical reason, right? Well, according to my Catholic priest friend, and it’s hugely important to understand, Jesus will answer very clearly that, by definition, what is right and wrong is what God says to do or not do, because he’s the boss – which is reasonable, it’s completely reasonable if you have the view of a creator.
According to this view, what defines something like killing as wrong is because it goes against God’s law: God said don’t kill. Because it’s God’s law, what makes it wrong is because God said – and I’m not criticizing this. This is powerful, you know? Because it’s God’s law: God is the boss; God punishes and God rewards.
This is tremendously powerful. But the trouble is as soon as we hear that Buddha says don’t kill, we hear it in the same way: he’s sitting on top of our head saying, “Don’t kill, and if you do, I’ll punish you.” That’s how we think of it.
Well, for the Buddha, that’s like going to your doctor, and she says, “Don’t smoke,” and you say, “Why not?” And she says, “Because I say so, and if you do, I will give you cancer.” It’s absurd!
If you ask Buddha what makes killing, for example, wrong, he’ll say, “Well, honey, have you noticed that people don’t like getting killed?” It’s a natural law. For the Buddha, killing is what they call a “natural negativity.” This is a hugely important difference to remember!
But the other, major, point we totally miss in the West is that, yes, killing is defined as a natural law because it harms others, but why Buddha exhorts us not to do it is because, as a wise doctor who from his own experience has observed the reality that what we think and do and say programs me, sows seeds in my mind that will ripen in the future, s0 therefore if I kill and I steal and I lie, those actions will program my mind with that negativity and I will be the recipient of the future suffering.
This is the basis of the Buddhist view of morality. We have to think it through carefully.
If you like, we can say it’s self-compassion. Then, eventually, it’ll also be based on compassion for others as well.