The essence of the Buddhist view of karma is: 1. we’ve got a consciousness, a mind, that goes back and back and back and back and back; 2. every millisecond of what we think and do and say programs that mind.
The main cause of what’s in my mind, and even the main cause of what I experience in my life, is what I think and do and say – that’s the essence of the view of karma. Of course, it sounds insane on the face of it, given the completely different views in the world, so one has to look into it, and study it, and look at the logic of it, and think about it, and meditate on it, and then attempt to live according to it.
What’s the result of living according to it? Well, if we take it seriously, and slowly, slowly start to practice it, the result is giving up the victim view, giving up the panic and fear of, “I don’t deserve,” all this – the good and the bad.
We never say, “I don’t deserve it,” about the good: we totally assume we deserve good things. Now, I find this point so fascinating; we could spend hours on this one.
Instinctively, we know that when good things happen we never even question it. Because why? Because we assume we deserve good things. This is so deep in our view: it’s so deeply instinctive as a view and as a truth, we absolutely never question it, you know? Think about this. We take it for granted, and then we think, “Give me more please!”
But look what happens when bad things happen: what preoccupies our mind all day is the suffering, the bad things happening.
Why? Because instinctively, in the depth of the bones of our being, ego’s view is the view of an innocent victim, who was made by somebody else, who didn’t ask to get born, who plays no role in their life, and to whom bad and good things happen randomly.
No wonder we suffer!
Buddha argues with all of that. It’s quite powerful – and it’s not easy to apply it. And then the trouble is when we start hearing about karma, we just get fixated, obsessed: “I must be a bad person.” Every person I’ve ever met who’s a Buddhist who starts to think about karma says, “Oh, I must have been a really bad person in the past.” Everybody says that.
I’ve never yet heard a person say, “I must have been a really good person in the past.” And we should! Because if we analyzed every millisecond, if you tracked one of your days, just one, and from the first second that you get out of bed until the time you go to sleep you tick the boxes of good experiences and bad experiences – including everybody in this room, and even if you’re in a prison where you don’t belong – you’d still have far more good experiences than bad. But we don’t notice the good!
We only notice the bad, and they loom large, and then we feel like victims. I mean, this is natural. Don’t feel guilty – this is just the way ego’s constructed.
So we have to unpack and unravel it – and argue with it. Every second you find even one grain of rice, every second you have a roof over your head, every second you have not too much pain in your knees, every second that someone smiles at you, every second the sun is shining and the weather’s reasonable, every second that your bed is comfortable, every second any tiny, miniature good thing happens – every one of those, every one is the fruit of some incredible virtue of yours.
You grew those seeds, and they are now ripening as some level of experience of reasonable things happening, but we take them for granted: we take them for granted because we assume we deserve them. Then we demand more, or we don’t even notice them – and then we become dissatisfied with them.
But when a bad thing happens, panic attack – complete panic attack! This is not criticism, this is just how we are, so you have to analyze it, you know? It takes great courage to turn the energy of this big atomic bomb around.
The essence of karma is that the mind – what goes on in the mind – is the main source of your happiness and suffering. Therefore, the job of being a Buddhist is to mold our minds into the shape we like, which, of course, is the shape of goodness and wisdom and clarity and contentment and satisfaction and joy and compassion and love and kindness – these are the words of the components of a happy mind.
And the job is to argue with the conceptual stories that are the components of an unhappy mind: fear, anxiety, anger, depression, jealousy, attachment. This is not being critical, not being negative. This is the analysis that Buddha gives that we use as the basis of our daily practice – and, of course, it’s hard work. Oh my goodness, it’s hard work, but it’s worthwhile if we buy into it, and it goes to very instinctive levels, you know?
We’re the boss. That’s why I love karma so much. I love being the boss. But you can’t just say it once a day, “Oh yeah, I’m the boss,” and then go back to the default mode of victim. We’ve got to practice it every single second, every time something happens.
Every time something good happens – you know, you wake up, and you get out of bed, and you feel there’s no pain in your knees – you go, “Wow, this is the fruit of my past virtue. How incredible!” Then you get your cup of tea, and the tea is really tasty: “Wow, this is incredible, the fruit of my past virtue!” And then the sun is shining through that little peek of the window: “Wow, this is amazing!” The weather’s warm and pleasing to my body: the result of my past virtue. Someone rings you up and says, “Hello, Robina!”: fruit of my past virtue.
Every minute of the day. There must be thousands of moments in the day when good things happen, but we take them for granted.
And then, just like with the good things we can own the bad things as well. And then vow not to do the things that cause them again.
We’ve got to change the script in our head. We’ve got to reinterpret our lives. This is being a Buddhist – if you want to.