The Law of Karma

Karma isn't fate, and it isn't punishment — it's a mechanism. Translated from Sanskrit, karma means “action.” Here, we’ll shed some light on karmic cause and effect–how thoughts become actions, actions become habits, and habits shape what happens to you next. Generally speaking, karma refers to actions that naturally arise from thoughts and feelings.

Thoughts and feelings come from compulsive urges, such as desire and attachment, which lead us to see things, think about them, and act out in certain ways related to them. Over time, these actions lead to habits that are either reinforced by continuing to act in those same ways or diminished by opposing them.

In traditional Buddhist texts, karma primarily focuses on four topics: cause and effect; the urge born of habits of mind (karma itself); actions propelled by that urge; and the effects/results of those actions.

Dependent origination, or the law of cause and effect, is the basic principle that makes up the foundation of karma. The basic idea is that nothing comes into being without a cause, and certain causes bring about certain effects. For example, a barley seed will only grow barley, not rice or any other plant. In the context of karmic or behavioral cause and effect, virtuous or beneficial actions will bring about results of happiness. Alternatively, non-virtuous or harmful actions will bring about results of suffering.

The traditional texts on karmic cause and effect also give an extensive presentation of the varieties of causes, conditions, and effects that explain the way everything comes into being and are not limited to the context of karma.

First, if all the causes and conditions for something to occur come together and nothing is opposing its arising, the effect is certain to occur. For example, if a barley seed (the cause) is planted, the conditions of moisture, warmth, sunlight, and nutrients come together, and opposing conditions such as frozen ground, disease, and being trampled by animals don’t oppose it, a barley plant is certain to grow.

Similarly, if you have the karmic “seeds” of anger–the latent feelings or tendencies planted by past experiences–and that anger is not opposed by your patience or commitment not to get angry, your karmic urge might drive you to get angry when you meet someone (the external condition) who says or does something you experience as harmful. You will then think, do, or say something non-virtuous to express that anger. The principle of cause and effect applies to everything in the world. When we say karmic cause and effect or “behavioral” cause and effect, we are discussing how all of these various causes and effects (among which karma is just one) influence everything we think, experience, do, or say.

Buddhism teaches that all our experiences and actions are shaped by our karmic seeds and the immediate conditions we encounter. So, when our eyes see someone we are attracted to (the immediate condition), we perceive them as beautiful, a pleasant feeling, and a karmic urge that drives us to think about them or say or do something with them. You can now think of this karmic urge as a habit or compulsion.

We might normally think, “That person made me mad!” or  “I am in love,” or “I got angry,” imagining that there is some independent “I” that is separate from the object of our anger or desire—separate from this whole process. But our sense of self is something we merely imagine based on various causes and conditions related to our body, feelings, urges, perceptions, and consciousness (known as the Five Aggregates). Seeing our experience as a process of behavioral causes and effects gives us some freedom from our imagined sense of self (or self-grasping), which is the source of our arrogance and our self-criticism, and may lead you to think karma is pre-determined and we have no control over our lives.

Jetsünma Jamyang Palmo, a Buddhist scholar in the Namchak lineage, discusses the differences between dependent origination (cause and effect) and hard determinism–the idea that everything in the universe is pre-destined–in her talk: “Dependent Origination Versus Hard Determinism.”  Jetsünma explains that if we were to buy a new dress, that purchase would be influenced by internal and external conditions. The internal conditions are our preferences for certain types of dresses, colors, and fits. The external conditions are the latest fashion trends, or matching the dress to the season or a specific occasion. These external conditions do not arise from our own personal karma but from group karma. Though the latest fashion trends and seasonal weather are not products of our personal karma, these external conditions interact with our internal karmic conditions to influence our decisions.

Studying cause and effect in detail leads us to the basic understanding that nothing exists independently without relying upon causes and conditions. Mahayana Buddhism, the path of awakening for the benefit of all beings, explores the concept of dependent origination further in teachings on emptiness.

With every instance of consciousness, there is an object to which we feel some level of happiness, displeasure, or neutrality, an urge to think or do something in reference to the object, contact with the object, and attentiveness to it. 

This urge (karma) is the mental factor that, while focused on an object, compels you to think or act in relation to it. Anytime we do something, be it thinking, speaking, or physically acting, an urge leads us to do so. This urge isn’t something conceptual or thought-out, as an intention would be. For example, we may be sitting on our couch and intend to get up and get a glass of water. But we might keep sitting there for another hour until karma propels us to get up and get it.

So, intentions are more like thoughts, whereas karma is a compulsive, habitual urge. These urges can also be at odds with our intentions. For example, we may intend to be patient with a certain person, but the power of our compulsive karmic urges may nonetheless lead us to think of them with anger. This urge toward anger is “mental karma” because it leads to a “mental pathway of karma,” meaning it leads us to the mental action of getting angry. In addition to mental karma, there are physical and verbal karma, which, like mental karma, are factors that urge one to act physically or verbally. For example, if the karmic urge to anger led you to hit someone, that would be physical karma.

For a karmic action to be “complete,” four factors must be in place: a basis, motivation, application, and successful completion of the intended action. We can demonstrate these four in an example of lying to someone. The basis is the person we want to deceive, the motivation is the intention to deceive them, together with the desire to deceive them, the application is actually saying the untrue thing, and the act is successfully completed if our words deceive the person. There’s a bit to unpack here, so we’ll go through these individually.

Bad karma is primarily caused by non-virtuous actions, thoughts, and feelings, all of which fuel each other cyclically and are often driven by the three poisons of Buddhism: ignorance, desire, and aversion. These poisons taint our actions, leading to habits and tendencies that stray from moral and ethical conduct. Ignorance, or the misunderstanding of the true nature of reality and self, fuels actions misaligned with the principles of kindness, compassion, and wisdom, producing negative consequences or bad karma.

Actions rooted in carnal desire or attachment can lead to harmful outcomes, as can actions stemming from aversion or anger, which are also forms of delusion. To avoid bad karma, it is essential to cultivate understanding and mindfulness of these poisons and engage in practices that counteract them, such as developing compassion, altruism, and a clearer understanding of the interconnectedness of all beings and the impermanence of existence.

The ripened result arises later on and not immediately after an action, and primarily refers to the situation of your five aggregates in a future life. The five aggregates are the Buddha's map of what we mistake for a solid, separate self. They're not a philosophy to memorize — they're an invitation to look closely at what's actually happening, moment to moment, when we say "I." This is the basis with which we will live out our lives: our body, feelings, karmic urges, perceptions, and consciousness, all determined by our compulsive (karmic) behavior in previous lives.

There are two types: results that correspond to their causes in our actions and results that correspond to their causes in our experiences.

• Results that correspond to their causes in our actions are, for example, if we harm others, we will continue to wish to harm them in the future. Understanding this process is important. Karma is the urge that leads us to an intention and an action. By completing the action, we create more karmic urges that keep us in the cycle of compulsive behavior.
• Results that correspond to their causes in our experience are, for example, if I yell at other people, I will experience being yelled at. The crucial point to understand here is that the result is the experience. My karma is not making the other person yell at me.

For example, if I get hit by a car, it may be my karma that I experience being hit by a car, but my karma did not cause that person to get in their car on that particular day and drive into me. These experiences arise from our five aggregates: our bodies, feelings, other mental factors and emotions, perception, and consciousness.

This refers to the experience that will dominate our lives regarding the environment we find ourselves in. For example, if I steal things and use others’ possessions without permission, I will experience poverty and having things taken from me, but also, as a dominating result, I will experience being in a society that is poor and unjust. This can be thought of in two ways: one is that others as well experience being in a poor country or society, that it is a collective experience, and another where, no matter what the external situation is, the individual’s experience is dominated by a “poverty mentality.”

As the name suggests, human-made results require human involvement.

This kind of result is one in which the cause and the result are separate, much like when a person builds a house: the person and the house they build both exist separately and simultaneously.

Results of separation are not “actual” results in terms of a cause-and-effect relationship. For example, when the wind blows the clouds away and reveals the sun, the sun is not caused by the wind. But as the wind disperses the clouds, the sun can be seen. This concept applies to the Buddhist path in that our innate Buddha nature is revealed when we purify our misdeeds and obscurations, the layers of confusion, habit, and reactivity that cloud our natural clarity, by practicing the path.

Though our Buddha nature is not a result of the path, when it is revealed by purifying our obscurations, we can say that we “attain” Buddhahood, even though we did not attain anything new as a direct cause of our actions, but merely revealed something that was obscured yet always there.

1. Small actions can bring about great results. Just as a tiny spark can start a great forest fire, we shouldn’t be dismissive of small positive thoughts and actions while abandoning negative ones, as they can have immense helpful or destructive results.
2. Karmic results don’t transfer to others like germs! Only we will experience our own karma. This also means we can’t remove others' karma, and vice versa. The Buddha said that even he cannot simply remove our karma or suffering, and that they can only be overcome through practicing the path. If the Buddha couldn’t do it, it goes without saying that wearing special crystals or having someone play a singing bowl on our chakras isn’t going to do it either.
3. We won’t meet with the results of actions we didn’t commit. When you’re experiencing something difficult, you might consider this point. When Tibetans were imprisoned unfairly by the Chinese, they had the view that, in at least one of their countless lives, in their ignorance, they must have been imprisoned and harmed others similarly. Now they were burning off that karma, slowly unloading it, while the guards were taking on a karmic load.
4. The karmic actions we have committed won’t disappear on their own. We either must experience their results or purify them through specific practices.