The Concept of Karma in Buddhism

 

 

   To make the Buddhist perspective of freewill more clear, we would like to present the concept of karma as thought about and preached upon by various heretical teachers who where the Buddha’s contemporaries. In the Sāmaññaphala Sutta, six heretical teachers are described as “the head of an order, of a following, the teacher of a school, well-know and of repute, as a sophist, revered by the people, a man of experience who has long been a recluse, old and well-stricken in years.”

         The six distinguished teachers had different interpretations of the concept of karma and had preached the doctrine of karma in different ways according to their beliefs.

           1. Pūrana Kassapa ; He is of the belief that there is neither cause nor condition of the existence of things. Sāmaññaphala Sutta states clearly that he absolutely denies the efficacy of karma, either good or bad, in producing effect. His belief can also be seen in the Sūtrakrtāńga of Jainism which states that “when a man acts or causes another to act, it is not his soul which acts or causes to act.” Therefore, his doctrine is classified by Buddhism and Jainism as akiriyavāda (a believer in non-conditionality).

         2. Makkhali Gosāla ; His view is also known as akiriyavāda because, like the former, he believes that soul does not exist, or that it does not act or is not affected by action even on the level of conventional truth. Apart from the denial of the effects of action and energy, he also believes that all beings are subjected to a fixed and unchangeable series of existence, each of which has its own unalterable characteristic. From an ethical point of view, man becomes good or bad without condition. There is no action-and-result, no cause-and-effect. Men are bent this way and that way by fate. Due to this belief, Gosala was also termed a niyatavādin (fatalist). 

       3. Ajita Kesakambala. The doctrine of karma according to Ajita Kesakambala was recorded in the Pāli Text thus : 

“There is no such thing, O king, as alms or sacrifice or offering. There is neither fruit nor result of good or evil deeds. There is no such thing as this world or the next.”

       Accordingly, his doctrine of karma is like that of materialism, because he denies the possibility of karma and rebirth. By upholding this doctrine, he was known as ucchedavādin (annihilationist).

     4. Pakudha Kaccāyana. In the connection with the doctrine of karma, Pakuda teaches that there are seven eternal elements, and that no matter what we do, no change can affect the eternal elements. In the same way Pakuda postulates that whatever may happen to a person in his life has no affect on the soul. Hence, no merit or demerit can achieve anything. This way of thought denies the moral value of action. Because Pakuda teaches that the soul and the world are both eternal, giving birth to nothing new, steadfast as a mountain peak or a pillar firmly fixed, he is known as a sassatavādin (eternalist).

     5. Sañjaya Belatthiputta ; According to the Pāli Canon, Sañjaya Belatthiputta was depicted as an amarāvikkhepikā (eel-wriggler). When he was asked a question, he would not answer the question directly, instead would try to wiggle out of it, like an eel, without giving a specific answer. For example,

“If you ask me about the beings produced by chance ; or whether there is any fruit, any result of good or bad actions ; or whether a man who has won the truth continues, or not, after death, to each or any questions I give the same reply.”

       Due to this type of vague approach to questions, we do not get any hint of his thought about karma. By this attitude, he was criticized by the King Ajātasattu as the most foolish of all the celebrated teachers.

        6. Nigantha Nātaputta ;   According to him, soul is permanent and karma is regarded as a tangible substance. This karma-matter accumulated around the soul during the infinite number of past lives (karmanasarīra) encircles the soul as it passes from birth to birth.  The annihilation of old karma is possible by practicing austerities and the prevention of new karma is possible by inactivity. According to Jainism, bodily action and verbal action are more important than mental action. Therefore, the meaning of karma according to Jainism is definitely different from that of Buddhism. Unlike Buddhism, Jainism holds that committing bad action, with intention or not, leads to the same result. “The man who commits murder or who harms in any way a living being, without intent, is none the less guilty, just as a man who touches fire is burned.”Accordingly, Nigantha Nātaputta is known as a believer in kiriyavāda (the doctrine of action).

         These six masters were rivals of the Buddha ; both the Buddha and his disciples criticized the doctrine of these men. For example, Pūrana Kassapa teaches that evil actions have no ensuing guilt (pāpa) or bad result, and good actions achieve no good results; in other words, there is no correlation of action and result on a moral basis or on an ethical criterion. No moral law ensures desirable consequences for virtue and undesirable results for vice. Morality, if Purana would even recognize it, has no application to actions. This teaching shows that there is no relation between action and goodness or badness. Human action is one thing, virtue and vice is another. Moral responsibility is unnecessary for their existence according to Pūrana. Pūrana’s doctrine tends to be part of annihilationism. According to him, happiness or suffering is haphazard and without cause and effect.

      Despite his denial of moral causation and the result of moral action, Makkali Gosāla accepts the possibility of ultimate moral purification independent of human action. He admits that, in the course of his samsāric (worldly) sojourn, an individual experiences happiness (sukha) and suffering (dukkha) and finally attains his purification, terminating his suffering through the implied agency of his fate (niyati).

         The Buddha did not agree with these two masters on the basis that their teachings were deficient ; neither  acknowledged the existence of freewill and moral responsibility. Without these two components, the teaching of karma bears no fruits. They upheld the wrong views. And the upholding of wrong views, according to the Buddha, is classified into three groups, namely :

         1. Pubbekatahetuvāda : The belief that all happiness and suffering arise from previous karma (past-action determinism)

          2. Issaranimmanahetuvāda : The belief that all happiness and suffering are caused by the creation of a Supreme Being (theistic determinism).

           3. Ahetuvāda : The belief that happiness and suffering are random, having no cause (indeterminism or accidentalism).

 

         We may categorize these teachers roughly as :

1.Pūrana Kassapa is of accidentalism

2.Ajita Kesakambala is of accidentalism

3.Pakuda Kaccāyana is of theistic determinism

4.Nigantha Nātaputta is of past-action determinism.

        Makkhali Gosāla does not fall directly into these categories. Instead, he can be termed a straight determinist because he does not recognize a Supreme Being like the theistic determinists choose to do.

       The Buddha spoke against all of these divergent views. The Buddha responded to those who do not believe in the responsibility of man for his actions. He disagreed with past-action determinism as follows : 

“Bhikkhus, of those three groups of ascetics and Brahmins, I approach the first group and ask, ‘I hear that you uphold this teaching and view… Is that so?’ If those ascetics and Brahmins, on being thus questioned by me, answer that it is true, then I say to them, ‘if that is so, then you have killed living beings as a result of karma committed in a previous time, have stolen as a result of karma done at a previous time, have engaged in sexual misconduct… have uttered false speech… have held wrong views as a result of karma done in a previous time.’

Bhikkhus, adhering to previously done karma as the essence, there is neither motivation nor effort with what should be done and what should not be done…

        In the same sutta, the Buddha uses the same reasoning to dismantle the second and the third wrong views. In his argument, we see a clue to the concept of freewill in the sentence “there is neither motivation nor effort with what should be done and what should not be done.” Though, there is no direct reference to freewill in this text, this statement concerning motivation and effort is an indirect assertion of freewill. Despite its conditioned state, freewill is the ability to choose what is morally good and what is morally bad. Buddhism also accepts the premise that if this ability is not present, the purpose of living the religious-life (brahmacariya), which has Nibbāna, and the release from the bond of samsāric existence as its goal, becomes completely futile.

       The Ańguttaranikāya records an instance where a certain Brahmin questioned the Buddha regarding the problem of individual ‘agency’ and thus cast light upon the Buddhist position on freewill. The Brahmin said that he holds the view that there is no self-agency (atta-kāra) or external agency (para-kāra) and asked for the Buddha’s views. The Buddha pointed out the fallacy of this view and demonstrated the fact that individuals possess thoughts which allow them to initiate actions according to their choices. A number of terms are used to bring out this idea of initiative : ārabbha (initiative effort, inception of energy), nikkama (endurance, exertion), parakkama (striving, endeavor), thāma (resistance), thiti (persistence), and upakama (undertaking). These words in one way or another, connote the ability of voluntary initiation of action in accordance with one’s choice of the course of that particular action.

        Buddhism accepts the importance of previous karma to some degree but does not agree with the doctrine of past-action determinism which holds that happiness and suffering arise only from previous actions in previous lives. According to that view, we do not have freewill or any choice because we are already determined by previous actions. But according to the view of the Buddha, previous karma is seen in a cause-and-effect process, in accordance with the law of Paticcasamupāda. It is not a super-natural force to be clung to or submitted to passively. Although past-actions can effect our present state, in the continuous process of karma, from the past to the future, at any moment we still have choice or are free to initiate new karma; we have freewill. The following example given be P.A. Payutto makes this concept quite clear :

         “If a man climbs to the third floor of a building, it is undeniably true that his arriving is a result of past action, that is walking up the stairs. And having arrived there, it is impossible for him to reach out and touch the ground with his hand, or drive a car up and down there. Obviously, this is because he has gone up to the third floor. Or, having arrived at the third floor, whether he is too exhausted to continue is also related to having walked up the stairs. His arrival there, the things he is able to do there and the situation he is likely to encounter, all are certainly related to the old karma of having walked up the stairs. But exactly which actions he will perform, his reactions to the situations which arise there, whether he will take a rest, walk on, or walk back down the stairs and out of that building, are all matters which he can decide for himself in that present moment, for which he will also reap the results.”

          The passage implies that although present action is influenced by previous actions, the choice to create new action is still reserved for the individual. It is obvious that the human is free to choose and freewill is inherent in the human’s decision making process. Because of free-will, we are not merely the slaves of the past. We can choose to initiate good things in life. At any rate, this process of freewill can be possible only if it coincides with the doctrine of Dependent Origination (conditionality). It is this point which creates the differentiation between Buddhism and Jainism. While the later holds strictly that we are determined by previous action and we cannot change, the former believes that despite having been influenced by previous karma, by the intervention of paticcasamuppāda (Dependent Origination) one can gradually eradicate the old karma and initiate new karma by one’s own choice and agency.

       In summation, Buddhism asserts the reality of human freedom or freewill without denying that this freewill was conditioned but not wholly shaped or determined by the effects of previous factors. Freedom of choice lies at the very heart of Buddhist ethics. The possibility of our refraining from evil and doing good, depends upon the fact that our choices and decisions are not strictly and wholly determined and in this sense are free.

       By exercising his own freewill a human being can change his own nature for the good of himself as well as others. In this way, man is master of his own fate.