Karma: Who’s to Blame?

Topics for Analysis: Karma, Me and Blame

There are three topics that need clarification in order to answer the question: “Karma: who’s to blame” – karma, me and blame. We need to clarify all three through analysis, since misconceptions about them cause us serious suffering, for instance the suffering of guilt. To achieve a true stopping of that suffering requires correct understanding. To gain that correct understanding, we need thorough analysis. As His Holiness the Dalai Lama always emphasizes, analytical meditation is the most effective type of meditation to practice for eliminating suffering.  

Karma

Karma refers to the compulsion associated with an action – compulsive ways of thinking, speaking and behaving. Although the Tibetan word for karma, “las,” is the colloquial word for “action,” karma does not refer to our actions themselves. Karma is something we need to rid ourselves of in order to attain liberation and enlightenment. If karma simply meant actions, then all we would need to do is to stop thinking, saying or doing anything, and then we would be liberated from all suffering. That doesn’t make any sense. 

Although there is a unique Theravada presentation of karmic cause and effect, the Tibetans generally do not study it. Instead, they follow two Sanskrit presentations:

The older one is the Madhyamaka presentation, found in Nagarjuna’s Root Verses on the Middle Way, Called Discriminating Awareness (dBu-ma rtsa-ba shes-rab, Skt. Prajñā-nāma-mūlamadhyamaka-kārikā) and elaborated upon by both Sautrantika-Svatantrika and Prasangika Indian masters. It is based on such Sarvastivada sutras as The Noble Great Mahaparinirvana Sutra (’Phags-pa yongs-su mya-ngan-las ’das-pa chen-po’i mdo, Skt. Āryamahāparinirvāṇa Sūtra) and (The Sutra of) the Close Placement of Mindfulness on the Noble Hallowed Dharma (Phags-pa dam-pa’i chos dran-pa nye-bar gzhag-pa, Skt. Āryasaddharmasmṛtyupasthāna), as well as on several texts from the Sarvastivada Abhidharma Basket. Vasubandhu, in Treasure House of Special Topics of Knowledge (Chos mngon-par mdzod, Skt. Abhidharmakośa), and his commentators also elaborated on these sutra and abhidharma sources in the context of the Vaibhashika tenet system. 

The other Sanskrit presentation was formulated by Kumaralata, the founder of the Sautrantika tenet system, who rejected the Sarvastivada abhidharma sources in favor of other Sarvastivada sutra sources that were not translated into Tibetan and thus not preserved in the Kangyur. These sutra sources espoused a different explanation of karma exclusively in terms of the mind. Vasubandhu elaborated the Sautrantika objections to the Vaibhashika version in Autocommentary to “A Treasure House of Special Topics of Knowledge” (Chos mngon-pa’i mdzod-kyi bshad-pa, Skt. Abhidharmakośa-bhāṣyā). Asanga then expanded on this Sautrantika version of karma, putting it in the context of the Chittamatra tenet system, in An Anthology of Special Topics of Knowledge (Chos mngon-pa kun-las btus-pa, Skt. Abhidharmasamuccaya). This Chittamatra version was accepted by the Yogachara-Svatantrika masters, but within the context of the other assertions of their own tenet system. 

In both the Madhyamaka-Vaibhashika and Sautrantika-Chittamatra systems, karma may be destructive, constructive or unspecified. “Unspecified” means that Buddha did not specify whether it was destructive or constructive; it could go either way depending on the motivating state of mind. In all three cases, each is brought on by and accompanied by grasping for an impossibly existent “me.”

  • Destructive – brought on by and accompanied by a disturbing emotion or attitude and by grasping for an impossibly existent “me” – for instance, saying hurtful words to someone because of anger and not liking what they said to “me.”
  • Constructive – brought on by and accompanied by a constructive emotion and by grasping for an impossibly existent “me” – for instance, refraining from saying hurtful words to someone because “I” don’t want to experience the suffering results, or helping someone with non-attachment to them because “I” want to be the good one, the one who always helps.
  • Unspecified – brought on by and accompanied simply by grasping for an impossibly existent “me,” without an additional disturbing emotion or constructive emotion – for instance, eating a hot meal with soup at noon because of believing that “I” am someone who always has to have a hot meal with soup for lunch and it must be at noon.

The Self, “Me”

It is clear, then, that all three types of karmic behavior entail grasping for an impossibly existent “me.” So, the issues of how the self, “me,” exists – the one who commits karmic actions and experiences their results – and of how the connection is maintained between behavioral cause and effect and between “me” as the agent of a karmic action and “me” as the one who experiencers its result are crucial.

Understanding behavioral cause and effect and “me” is dependent on the assertions of a tenet system, so the analysis of karma and of “me” need both to be in the context of the same tenet system in order for them to fit together without contradictions. Although the Sautrantika-Chittmatra explanation of karma is simpler than the Madhyamaka-Vaibhashika one and is often taught first, its view of the voidness of the self has many shortcomings. Chittamatra asserts:

  • Foundation consciousness (kun-gzhi rnam-shes, Skt. ālayavijñāna) and reflexive awareness (rang-rig)
  • All karmic aftermath – karmic force, karmic tendencies and karmic constant habit – as well as the self, as imputation phenomena on the basis of foundation consciousness
  • Foundation consciousness, karmic aftermath, the self and reflexive awareness as all having self-established existence, truly established independently from the words and concepts that refer to them
  • Truly existent, self-established foundation consciousness as containing the findable defining characteristics of both itself and of the truly existent, self-established self
  • Liberation from karma and suffering as requiring the true stopping of merely grasping for a self that is static, partless, independently existent from the aggregates and self-sufficiently knowable. Such refutation leaves unrefuted a truly existent, self-established self.
  • Physical objects, cognitive sensors, consciousness, mental factors, reflexive awareness and the self in a moment of mental activity as devoid of coming from different natal sources (rdzas). They all arise as a “package” from the same karmic tendency and all have truly existent, self-established existence.

Sautrantika follows Asanga’s presentation, but without accepting those aspects of his Chittamatra assertions that do not accord with their views.

Madhyamaka, in general, refutes all these Chittamatra assertions. Since here we want to analyze specifically in the context of the Prasangika-Madhyamaka understanding of the voidness of the self in order to attain either liberation or enlightenment, we need to fit that understanding into the Madhyamaka assertions about karma.

Blame

To identify the object to be refuted concerning the self, we need to analyze how we regard ourselves, “me,” who is the agent of karma. Then, since karma refers to the compulsiveness of our behavior, we need to identify that compulsive factor. Then we need to examine whether we feel that our compulsive behavior is something that we can’t stop ourselves from doing. If we view it that way, we have a dualistic view of ourselves as a bad “me” and as the policeman “me.” If we view ourselves in that dualistic way, we then need to examine whether it leads to problems and suffering.

If we feel that we can’t stop ourselves from compulsively acting in certain ways, then am I to blame or are other people to blame or are outside factors like the economy to blame? For this, we need to analyze the role of the self and the role of causes, conditions and circumstances involved in our compulsively committing various actions and in experiencing their results.

Also, blame implies guilt, which means (1) I’m a bad person, or (2) you’re a bad person, or (3) society is bad for causing me to act in a certain way or for experiencing some karmic result. That means thinking (1) I’m being punished for what I did because I deserve it, or (2) you need to be punished for what you did that made me do what I did, or (3) the social order needs to be destroyed for making me do what I did, like steal or take drugs.

Then we need to examine the difference between blame and responsibility in terms of karma and in terms of the understanding of “me.” These are the topics we need to analyze in order to answer the question: “Karma, who’s to blame.”

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