What Is Karma?

Freedom in Emptiness and Impermanence

First published on January 29th, 2024. Minor revisions on March 15th, 2024.

While driving across a large portion of the United States last week, my partner asked me, “What is karma?” It seemed such a simple question. So simple that it should admit of a straightforward answer. Yet I responded with an evasive, “How do you mean?” She continued, “Like, what is it? I just don’t get it; I don’t understand it. What do Buddhists mean by karma?”

She’s not alone. There is a sense among the Buddha-curious, beginning practitioners, and even those sprinkled with some seasoning that karma is significant in Buddhist practice—and they’re not wrong. Indeed, in my short time here on Substack, I’ve published two posts in which I reflect on Kobun Chino Roshi’s talk on karma that appears in a collection of talks on the Heart Sutra. You can read those posts below; a third is coming soon.

Yet nowhere in those reflections do I say anything about, not so much what karma is, but my own understanding of karma. The closest I come is when I say that we tend to impose “connections, and sometimes even patterns, between the events that collectively constitute a significant part of our lives.” Specifically:

Because that was like that, now this is like this—necessarily. The connection seen between two events is not a chance connection or something that merely increases the probability of a certain future outcome. Rather, it is judged as a causally determining connection; the current event, whatever it is, must happen and could not not-happen because of the prior event. This is why sometimes “karma” is understood (and incorrectly) as interchangeable with “fate.” “I had to meet with these circumstances because of my actions last week,” we hear sometimes. But “karma” and “fate” are not the same. Moreover, the necessary connection between a particular past event and my current circumstances is not as simple as suggested by the karmic way of thinking.

Packed into this paragraph is a perspective on karma that is widely circulated in Western cultures and societies. Then, there’s a blunt statement that this perspective is incorrect. Finally, I hint that a correct understanding of karma allows for complexity. Yet nothing of substance follows that hint.

So, I want to share my understanding of karma and its place in Buddhist practice. I’ll try to offer enough for this post to spark some discussion.

A few months ago, a small volume bearing the title Buddhist Dictionary: Manual of Buddhist Terms and Doctrines compiled by Nyanatiloka, published by the Singapore Buddhist Meditation Center, appeared in the used bookstore where I work part-time. How did this small volume find its way to central Pennsylvania? Whatever its story, the entry on karma is three pages long and probably among the most extended entries in the dictionary. The opening paragraph reads:

KARMA (Skr.), Pāli: kamma: “Action,” correctly speaking denotes the wholesome and unwholesome volitions (kusala and akusala-cetanā) and their concomitant mental factors, causing rebirth and shaping the destiny of beings. These karmical volitions (kamma-cetanā) become manifest as wholesome or unwholesome actions by body (kāya-kamma), speech (vacī-kamma) and mind (mano-kamma). Thus the Buddhist term Karma by no means signifies the result of actions, and quite certainly not the fate of man, or perhaps even of whole nations (the so-called wholesale or mass-karma), which misconceptions through the influence of theosophy, have become widely spread in the West.

A handful of passages from various sutras support the entry, which completes the first page. The second and third pages of the entry address the topic of karma-results (vipāka), specifically timing, function, and priority, before concluding that a complete understanding of karma is beyond words and scriptures.

The critical point is this: karma is that by which (or through which, because of which) we shape our lives and, to a lesser degree, the lives of others. It is part of our freedom. It is, in part, the source of our liberation. Far from synonymous with “fate,” the word “karma” is a shorthand for our volitions—perhaps a more common word these days is “intentions”—and their relation to our beliefs and desires, conditioning and emotions, all of which influence to a large degree how we act as we move with and through the world.

Often, I use the word “orientation” in my Dharma Talks and personal writing instead of “karma.” What is my orientation towards the world, my community, and the sangha I practice with? How am I oriented in life, to life? With a similar spirit, I sometimes ask: What direction am I moving in? How is it that I want to show up for others, for myself? What qualities or values offer guidance as I endeavor to be present with what arises? I remember the words of Dainin Katagiri Roshi, who admonishes us to

Make a determination to live in a certain way, and move [our] life in that direction.

These questions and words of encouragement skirt feelings of begrudging acceptance and resignation and (re)connect us to a feeling of empowerment. We have a choice in how we meet life. We can orient ourselves to bear hardships easily and lightly if we choose to do so. It’s not the case that everything is up to us, but the essential thing is—exercising that art of showing up in ways that benefit others, including ourselves.

At the same time, karma does ripen. Once more Dainin Katagiri Roshi:

Habit energies lie stored up in the bottom of your mind as mental deposits until they ripen in your present life. So you should think carefully about all your activities.

The seeds we plant at one time will inevitably bear fruit at some later time, and we cannot say when with precision. More often than not, however, reality is not as rigid—fixed by simple, unwavering necessity—as we suppose. Because that was like that, now this is like this—necessarily. If you examine your life closely and honestly, how many events can you find where this was the case?

Sometimes, I offer the following example. If I were to have six shots of whiskey in thirty minutes, I would become intoxicated. The fruit of my karma ripens quickly in this case. It’s a straightforward, uncomplicated instance of the principle: Because that was like that, now this is like this—necessarily. Yet am I predetermined to have six shots of whiskey in thirty minutes? No, absolutely not. You might suppose that I am, though, because sometimes (depending on the particular room I am sitting in), I introduce myself with, “Hi. My name is Taishin, and I’m an alcoholic.” And though there were many days during a five-year period where this pattern of behavior was present, nothing necessitated that it continue the next day.

Why not? Above, I wrote that karma “is part of our freedom. It is, in part, the source of our liberation.” The other parts—or conditions, really—are emptiness and impermanence. There is no fixed nature, no singular, autonomous, unchanging self that is who I am. If “I” am anything, it’s a bundle of continually-changing “heaps” (SKANDAS [Skr.], Pāli: khanda) of which there are five general categories: those because of which there is physical form, sensations, perceptions, mental formations, and consciousness.

We can become attached to the contents of any one of these heaps; at some point in our lives, we have likely clung to all of them if not several at the same time. I spent a lot of time clinging to and identifying with “my” mental formations—and I still do. Years of practice and hand-sewn robes don’t signify that I’m free of attachment and clinging. Sometimes, though, I relate to the many things—ungraspable in number—that make up the “Taishin bundle” differently.

How so? One appropriate word is “detachment,” even if it invites more confusion than clarity. So, I’ll offer the word “respect.” Physical form changes, sensations and perceptions change, and there are changes in mental formations, along with an ever-changing awareness (that is, consciousness) of all of this. Some win my approval, while others meet with disapproval. That’s all right. Yet all changes, whatever they might be, are also met with respect—meaning that I try my best to avoid harming or interfering with them. None of them individually, nor all of them collectively, are “me” in any meaningful sense. None of it is personal. I remember, too, that all of them arise because of causes and conditions, some of which I might be able to identify, most of which I cannot. Finally, if I let them, all of them will pass in their own time. I can choose to let them be, not meddle, and respect their arising and eventual passing away. That respect for what arises requires a deep faith that “what comes down is not a mistake,” as my former teacher, Jogen Adam Salzberg, Sensei, puts it.

This is perhaps a too-long way of saying that, contrary to what we may feel at any particular time, we are, in fact, completely, utterly free. Therefore, it is up to us to determine how we want to live this life—and we can, by way of our karma. That can be terrifying when you feel it. And that’s all right too. Sit down for a while, as Kobun Chino Roshi encourages:

The more you sense the rareness and value of your own life, the more you realize that how you use it, how you manifest it, is all your responsibility. We face such a big task, so naturally we sit down for a while.

But please remember you don’t have to face this big task alone.

The quotations from Dainin Katagiri Roshi are from “The Light That Shines Through Infinity: Zen and the Energy of Life.”

The quotation from Kobun Chino Roshi is from “Embracing Mind: The Zen Talks of Kobun Chino Otogawa.”

For some additional reading on karma, check out these offerings:

Kobun Chino Roshi on Karma: Part One

Kobun Chino Roshi on Karma: Part Two