Lam-rim 28: What is Karma; Analysis of Motivation and Intention

So, we enter into the discussion of karma, behavioral cause and effect. The first topic that is dealt with in this discussion has to do with the four laws of karma. These are: 

1. The certainty of karma –  (1) if we experience suffering, unhappiness, it is certain that that unhappiness is the result of destructive behavior, and (2) if we experience tainted happiness, which is the suffering of change, it is certain that that happiness is the result of constructive behavior done without the understanding of voidness.
2. The increase of karmic results – from a small cause, huge results can follow. 
3. Not experiencing karmic results without having amassed their causes – in other words, what we experience doesn’t come from no cause at all. 
4. No loss of karmic results once we’ve built up their causes – if we’ve built up the causes, we will experience the results. 

Of course, we have to add the condition that, in the case of negative potentials, we could – though it’s not very easy – purify ourselves of those potentials, in which case, we wouldn’t experience the results. That’s why this first law of karma is not formulated to say that, if we commit destructive actions, it is certain that those actions will result in unhappiness and suffering. It’s possible to purify the negative potentials. On the other hand, if we engage in constructive actions, it is certain that those actions will lead to happiness – but that, also, one could qualify.

Participant: It doesn’t burn those potentials?

Dr. Berzin: We read that anger “burns” the positive potentials. The actual word that’s used in Sanskrit and Tibetan means “to devastate” (bcom), which means to weaken extremely. However, it doesn’t mean that those potentials are actually eliminated from the mental continuum.

Participant: What about purification of the negative ones?

Dr. Berzin: Purification can eliminate the negative potentials from the mental continuum. There’s a whole discussion as to why. It has to do with negative potentials being built up on the basis of unawareness – not understanding reality. The understanding of reality, or voidness, completely opposes that unawareness. However, it is only the non-conceptual cognition of voidness that can actually eliminate the negative potentials imputed on the mental continuum. Purification done with Vajrasattva meditation does not eliminate the negative potentials. Though these potentials will never ripen into suffering, they will delay the attainment of the non-conceptual cognition of voidness. The same is true of negative potentials that have completed giving rise to suffering as their result. They too remain as an imputation on the mental continuum, delaying the attainment of non-conceptual cognition of voidnesss until the attainment of that non-conceptual cognition totally eliminates them.

The other thing that I wanted to mention is constructive behavior that is based on  unawareness – so, not understanding voidness. It’s not absolutely definite that that type of behavior will result in tainted happiness because the potentials built up from it could eventually be dedicated and therefore, in a sense, be converted into the type of positive potentials that lead to liberation and enlightenment. So, that type of constructive behavior wouldn’t necessarily lead to the suffering of change, to tainted happiness. 

So, for these various reasons, the first law, the certainty of karma, is always stated in terms of “if”: If we’re experiencing tainted happiness, it’s definite that that happiness is the result of constructive karmic behavior; and if we’re experiencing the suffering of suffering – unhappiness, pain, etc. – it’s definite that that unhappiness is the result of destructive behavior. OK?

What I would propose we do is to proceed very carefully and to go into these four laws of karma in great depth, because I think what is really missing for a lot of us is having total confidence in karma, in cause and effect. If we really were confident that acting destructively led to unhappiness and suffering, we would stop acting destructively. But we don’t. Why don’t we? Well, we could say it’s because of habit, laziness, and so on. But what we need to develop is a strong conviction in these laws of behavioral cause and effect. That’s why I’d like to go into them a little bit more deeply and to indicate some of the things that we have to consider. In order to understand the certainty of karma law, we need to understand what karma is. So, let’s look a little bit more deeply at what karma actually is and, in our meditations, try to recognize it in ourselves, in our experience. 

There are two different presentations of karma that we find in the Buddhist teachings. Here, we’re talking about the Buddhist teachings in the Indo-Tibetan tradition. 

• One system derives from Asanga’s “Anthology of Special Topics of Knowledge” (Chos mngon-pa kun-las btus-pa, Skt. Abhidharmasamuccaya). It is presented in the context of the assertions of the Chittamatra tenet system. Sautrantika and all the Madhyamaka schools except the Gelugpa version of Prasangika follow this presentation in general. They reject, however, certain specific Chittamatra points, such as all the items in one moment of cognition – the focal object, consciousness and all the mental factors including karma – being devoid of coming from separate natal sources (rdzas). Chittamatra asserts that they all ripen from the same natal source, namely one karmic “seed” (karmic tendency). The Theravada presentation agrees with some of Asanga’s assertions, such as karma being exclusively a mental factor, although many other aspects of its presentation are different. 
• The other system derives from Vasubandhu’s Treasure House of Special Topics of Knowledge (Chos-mngon-pa’i mdzod, Skt. Abhidharmakosha). Vasubandhu explains karma in the context of the assertions of the Vaibhashika tenet system. The Gelug version of Prasangika accepts Vasubandhu’s presentation in general but rejects its view of reality. It explains karma in the context of its own unique presentation of voidness. 

The second system is much more complicated. Since Asanga’s system is more widespread and simpler, let’s explore that. 

In the simpler presentation, karma (las) is exclusively a mental impulse (sems-pa, urge). It’s a mental factor (sems-byung, subsidiary awareness). Each moment of mental activity includes a mental impulse; it is an ever-present mental factor. A mental impulse is what draws the primary consciousness (sems-byung, subsidiary awareness), along with the mental factors that accompany it, to an object and causes it to be cognitively engaged in something constructive, destructive, or neutral.

Remember, mental factors are what accompany primary consciousness; they are subsidiary awarenesses. Primary consciousness is basically what channel we’re on – in other words, seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, feeling a physical sensation, or engaging in some type of thought process. Basically, primary consciousness is what cognizes the essential nature of a phenomenon. It’s like a computer recognizing its data as a written data, audio data, or graphic data. The mental factors accompany this primary consciousness. They include all the emotions and all the so-called mechanical things, such as distinguishing, attention, concentration, mindfulness, etc., that enable us to focus on and cognize something. 

So, karma is this mental factor that, like a magnet, draws the primary consciousness, along with the mental factors that accompany it to an object and causes it to be engaged in something constructive, destructive, or neutral. 

Now, do you have any idea what that actually refers to in terms of your experience?

Participant: So, it determines in which way one engages.

Dr. Berzin: It’s not that it determines anything; that would be a different mental factor. That gets into intention, and we’ll get to that in a moment. Karma, the mental urge, is not the same as the intention; rather, it’s like a magnet that draws you. The decision-making process is something else.

Participant: So, it’s not already the direction.

Dr. Berzin: It is what draws you in the direction; it doesn’t choose the direction.

Participant: It doesn’t determine the object that it’s drawn to?

Dr. Berzin: No. That’s the intention.

Participant: How easy is it to notice that? Is it a very unconscious thing?

Dr. Berzin: It’s not easy to notice. It’s very, very subtle. 

When we get to the discussion about intention, it will become a little bit clearer. Intention also brings in the term “motivation” which is another important mental factor. All these things are very specifically defined. Having all these mental factors specifically defined helps us – provided we can recognize them – to identify what to work on in ourselves. It’s like having a complex apparatus. If we know all the little pieces, then, if something goes wrong, we have an idea of how to fix it. 

Two Types of Karmic Impulse 

Vasubandhu and Asanga identify two types of karmic impulse. 

According to Asanga: (1) Inciting Karmic Impulses (2) Urging Karmic Impulses

There’s an inciting karmic impulse (sems-pa’i las, Skt.  cetana karma) and an urging karmic impulse (bsam-pa’i las, Skt. cetayitva karma). Gyaltsabje in his commentary on Asanga’s Treasury of Special Topics of Knowledge defines an inciting karmic impulse as the karmic impulse for a mental action (namely, thinking) that brings on a karmic impulse for a physical action, and presumably also brings on the karmic impulse for a verbal action. Urging karmic impulses are simply the karmic impulses that bring on physical, verbal or mental actions. 

To clarify, there are two types of karmic impulses in relation to mental actions: (1) inciting karmic impulses for mental actions that lead to a physical or verbal action – for example, thinking about stepping on the ants we see crawling on the floor and coming to a decision to do so, which then brings on an urging karmic impulse actually to step on them; and (2) urging karmic impulses for mental actions alone – for example, meditating, remembering, daydreaming, etc.

Thus, a karmic impulse for a mental action may be (a) both an urging and an inciting karmic impulse, in which case the mental action the impulse incites brings on an urging karmic impulse for a physical or verbal action, or (b) simply an urging karmic impulse, in which case the mental action it incites does not bring on an urging karmic impulse for a physical or verbal action. There are only these two possibilities. There are (c) no karmic impulses for a mental action that are inciting karmic impulses but not also urging karmic impulses, and (d) there are no karmic impulses for a mental action that are neither urging nor inciting karmic impulses. Thus, an inciting karmic impulse is a subcategory of an urging karmic impulse for a mental action.

Regarding the karmic impulses for physical or verbal actions, there are also two possibilities: (1) those that are brought on by a mental action, in other words, those that derive from an inciting karmic impulse – for example, the urge to step on the ants after having come to a decision to kill them; (2) those that are not brought on by a mental action, in other words, those that do not derive from an inciting karmic impulse – for example, the urge to do something one has not thought or decided to do, such as letting out a swear word when cutting oneself shaving. 

According to Vasubandhu: (1) Causal Motivating Drives (2) Contemporaneous Motivating Drives

In most discussions about karma, we find the word “motivation” used in a very general sense. But if we want to analyze more deeply, we need to speak about motivating drives, which is a composite of several mental factors.

When we talk about motivating drives, we need to differentiate the causal motivating drive (rgyu'i kun-slong) from the contemporaneous motivating drive (dus-kyi kun-slong). The causal motivating drive is what draws you into thinking about doing something – “I think I’ll say something nasty,” or “I think I’ll say something nice.” The contemporaneous motivating drive is the one that draws you into actually doing or saying it. So, there are two steps here to the motivation: causal and contemporaneous.

Among the components of the two types of motivating drives, what Asanga calls an inciting karmic impulse is what Vasubandhu calls the motivating urge that is part of the causal motivating drive, and what he calls an urging karmic impulse, Vasubandhu calls the motivating urge that is part of the contemporaneous motivating drive. 

Of course, as I mentioned, there are other components of the motivating drive, such as the motivating emotion, that are involved with each of those steps. For example, we could, out of compassion, think to scold our child; but, then, when we’re actually scolding the child, we could have a lot of anger. So, the emotion that accompanies these two phases can be quite different.

Participant: One could also have a karmic impulse to think about saying something without that thought actually leading to an urging karmic impulse for the verbal action

Dr. Berzin: Right. You could think about saying something but then decide not to. 

Now, of course, the whole process could go so quickly that you don’t notice that, first, you think to do something an, then, that you actually do it. It just sort of happens. But if you could really slow the process down into micro moments, you would notice these phases. That’s a lot of what one does in certain types of meditation. You slow down the process so much that you actually notice what’s going on. This is a method that is used in vipashyana types of meditation. 

In summary, then, if we put Asanga and Vasubandhu’s respective general discussions together, we can identify the inciting karmic impulse with the causal motivating drive and the urging karmic impulse with the contemporaneous motivating drive. 

Three Different Ways in Which the Word “Motivation” Is Used 

So, what is motivation? The word for “motivation” in Sanskrit (samutthana) means an “inciter to action.” It’s what incites or moves us to act. There are three ways in which the word is used:

• It can refer to the motivating emotion that moves us to do something. 
• It can refer to the karmic impulse to do something, what I translate as the “motivating urge.” When Vasubandhu identifies it as part of the causal and contemporaneous motivating drives and Asanga identifies it as the inciting and urging karmic impulses, they’re using it in this sense. 

Asanga uses the word in yet another way. This is where we get into the complexities. 

• It can refer to the motivating intention, which is also a component of the motivating drive. Asanga sometimes also uses the term “motivating attitude” (kun-slong-gi blo, motivating aim) as an equivalent for motivating intention. Just as we can distinguish the causal and contemporaneous motivating drives and emotions, so too can we sometimes differentiate the causal and contemporaneous motivating intentions.

In addition, to make it even more complicated, there is the term bsam-pa, which I translate as “motivating mental framework.” This refers to the composite of a distinguishing (‘du-shes) of a goal or an object to be attained, a motivating intention, and a motivating emotion.

Gyaltsabje, in his commentaries, explains that the karma – the mental impulse that moves the mind and causes it to be engaged with something constructive, destructive, or neutral – “moves the mind to an object by its own power like a magnet, without needing to rely on a motivating intention.” So, karma is associated with and accompanied by a motivating intention, but it is not the same as the intention. So, this gives us the structure to analyze further. 

The Definition of Intention

According to Asanga, an intention ('dun-pa) is “the desire to possess a desired phenomenon. It serves as the basis for undertaking something with perseverance.” “Desired phenomenon” can refer to an object, state of mind or an action. It is one of the five ascertaining mental factors that enable our mental activity to take its object with certainty. Asanga specifies these five only in the context of the constructive cognitions that they accompany. Vasubandhu, on the other hand, speaks of these five in the broadest sense. According to Vasubandhu, intention is “the desire to commit an action.” The action could refer to obtaining any object, to achieving any goal, or to doing something with any object or goal.

Commenting on Asanga’s presentation, Gyaltsabje adds, it is “a mental factor that is a differentiating awareness that is aimed at a phenomenon that has been previously thought about and in which it has keen interest (don-du gnyer).” He then elaborates: “The intention may be the desire to meet (with such a phenomenon), the desire not to be parted (from such a phenomenon), or having keen interest (in meeting with such a phenomenon or philosophical view in the future). It indicates certainty about specific objects that one has no intention toward, having not thought about them.” To clarify the phrase “specific objects” in Gyaltsabje’s comment: the intention to do something that we want to do implies having rejected all other alternative objects, states of mind or actions. We don’t intend to do anything other than what we want to do. We have made up our minds. 

Intention, then, enables our mental activity to take its object or engage in an activity with certainty. The Tibetan word that I am translating as “desire” here, is ‘dod-pa, which also means to wish to do something or to want to do it. But we need to differentiate (1) wishing to do something, whether we think about actually doing it or not, and (2) wanting to do something that we have thought to do and are certain about. So, in our discussion, let’s use “wanting to do something” as a synonym for intending to do it. We’ve made up our minds about it: we intend to do something that we want to do. 

Of course, we may intend to do something that we don’t really want to do – for instance, we may not want to go to work, but we intend to go anyway. Or we may not intend to do something that we nevertheless would want to do, like wanting to lose weight, but not actually intending to go on a diet or exercise more. But here, Gyaltsabje limits intention to wanting to do something and intending to do it, so doing something on purpose, intentionally.

The Feeling of Liking to Do the Action Arises before the Karmic Impulse and Accompanying Intention to Do It

Now, there’s another mental factor that we need to consider here, that of liking (dga'-ba, Skt. priti) to do something. Even before a karmic impulse arises, there is a feeling of liking to do something. We feel like doing something, and then we have the impulse to do it. So, feeling like doing it comes first. This is the case both with inciting karmic impulses and with urging karmic impulses. 

The karma (las) is only the impulse, the mental factor that moves the mind and causes it to be engaged in the action. That impulse is accompanied by an intention – we want to do it. So, “liking to do something” is equivalent to our term ‘dod-pa, the desire to do something, in its first sense, of wishing to do something, rather than in the second sense, of wanting to do it. 

So, here, we have a sequence. First, there is the feeling of liking to do something – “I’d like to see you again.” Then the karmic impulse comes up to think about getting up off our seat to go see you. That mental impulse is accompanied by the intention – “I definitely want to see you.” Otherwise, we wouldn’t think about going do it. And, of course, there’s still the feeling of liking to see you. The intention of wanting to see you is based on knowing who you are and being certain about what I want to do: I want to see you. Also, there could be a motivating emotion going on throughout all of this, which could be, “I like you; I’m attached to you,” or “I’m angry at you.”  

When we get further into this discussion, we’ll see that that the feeling of liking to do something is one of the results of karma, namely, the result that corresponds to its cause in our behavior (byed-pa rgyu-mthun-gyi 'bras-bu). Specifically, we feel like doing an action, in a particular moment, similar to what we have done in the past. In other words, we feel like repeating the action. Similarly, wanting to do it and so intending to do it, both in the context of thinking about doing it and actually doing it, is also the result of karma that corresponds to its cause in our behavior. So, what ripens from karma is both feeling like doing something and intending to do it because we want to do it. But the impulse itself, which is what actually moves us to engage in the action, is not a ripening of karma. Karma doesn’t ripen from karma. 

Let’s analyze in more detail. First, we have the feeling that we would like to do something. OK? Then comes the inciting karmic impulse that draws us like a magnet into thinking about doing it, accompanied by the intention to think about it because we want to do it, as well as a motivating emotion. Then comes the mental action of actually thinking about doing it and coming to a decision to do it. Then comes the feeling of liking to now act on our decision. That decision-making process, plus that feeling, bring on the urging karmic impulse for the physical action. That urging karmic impulse draws us like a magnet into actually doing it. It is accompanied by the intention now to do it, again because we really want to do it.

Let’s try to identify within ourselves at least this difference between (1) feeling like doing something, for instance, to scratch our heads (so, it could be something neutral) – “I feel like scratching my head,” (2) the intention to scratch our heads because we really want to do it – “I definitely want to scratch my head”; and (3) the urge, or impulse, that actually drives us to scratch it.

Now, many things can go through our minds, things we’d like to do or feel like doing. But if we are able to slow down the process, we can then decide to act on that feeling or not. If there is a decision-making process, then our physical action is preceded by the mental action of thinking about it in order to decide whether to do it or not. That conscious decision-making process might not be functioning very well. Ideally, it would entail discriminating awareness, the mental factor of discriminating whether it would be helpful to do it. For instance, I feel like yelling at you, “Why don’t you pay more attention to me!” but I know that that will just drive you further away. So, I decide that wouldn’t be very helpful. That’s discriminating awareness.

Participant: But there is no urge implied in this, no karmic impulse.

Dr. Berzin: If you are going to think about whether or not to yell, you first have a feeling of liking to think it over. That brings on a karmic impulse that draws you into the mental action of thinking about whether to yell or not. Deciding to yell would bring on another karmic impulse for the act of yelling. Of course, you could also just yell without first thinking about it. In that case, there is just the feeling of liking to yell and then an urging karmic impulse for the yelling. 

Yelling, however, is not inevitable. You could stop the sequence leading up to the yelling at any point. You could stop just when you feel like thinking about it, in which case, you don’t even consider the possibility. You could stop during the thinking process itself or even after you have come to the decision to yell. You could also stop just when you’re about to start yelling.

Here’s another example: I’m trying to be on a diet. I certainly feel like eating something, but I don’t actually think about going to the refrigerator and getting something. In this case, I’ve prevented myself from going to the refrigerator even before an urge to consider going arises, let alone an urge actually to go to the fridge. 

The urge is not the thinking. The urge, accompanied by the intention, is what brings you to the mental action of thinking to go to the refrigerator, planning what you’re going to eat and what you’re going to get from the refrigerator. That planning and so on is the mental action. But what we’re talking about here is that subtle urge that draws you into thinking about doing it. It’s very subtle.

Participant: In that case, it seems like the urge is there before the wish. First, there is the subtle feeling of “I would like to eat something.” Then comes the wish, “I wish to eat  something.”

Dr. Berzin: No, no, no. You’re differentiating feeling like eating from wishing to eat. Let’s not use the word “wish” then, since it can be used for either feeling like eating or wanting to eat. Feeling like eating is what comes first. “I feel like eating.” It’s the desire to eat something – desire is a mental factor. That brings on the urge to eat, accompanied by an intention to think about eating because we want to. That intention is based on the fact that you’ve eaten before, so it’s something that you recognize. I “feel like” or “would like to” is one thing, but then the intention is stronger: “I want to.” 

Remember the definition. Intention is a decisive wanting to do something. It’s the word “dunba” (’dun-pa) – to want to do something. The urge, on the other hand, is the magnet that draws you. Gyaltsabje says it very clearly: “The urge is the magnet that, by its own power, draws you to the object without needing to rely on the motivating intention.” In other words, the urge draws you compulsively into doing something. And this may occur whether or not you consciously want or intend to do it.

Participant: So, the urge is not conscious.

Dr. Berzin: Right. The intention is conscious; the urge is not conscious.

Participant: I would still suggest that the urge comes before the wish because, otherwise, you couldn’t formulate a wish.

Dr. Berzin: No. This would be the case only if you took the word “wish” to mean a thought process. We’re not talking about a thought process, the mental action of wishing to do something, like, “I wish to get up and go to the refrigerator.” What we’re talking about is a subtle feeling: “I feel like going to the refrigerator.” That feeling comes first and brings on the urge to think about doing it. The confusion here is that “wishing” could mean feeling like doing it, wanting to do it (the intention), or the mental action of thinking about wanting to do it.

It’s very, very subtle; therefore, let’s take some time to reflect on it and to try to recognize it. Think of a simple example. For me, it’s feeling like going to the refrigerator, but it could be feeling like doing anything– or not doing something: “I feel like not working anymore.”

Participant: You were labeling “intention” an “urge.” 

Dr. Berzin: No, what I was saying was that the word “motivation,” what incites us to act, is used in three different ways. That’s why the word “motivation” is often very confusing. It can refer to the motivating emotion, urge, or intention.

A tendency or potential to do an action similar to what we’ve done in the past ripens first as a feeling of liking to do that action. It doesn’t ripen into the urge to do it. A karmic potential doesn’t ripen into another karma; it doesn’t ripen into another urge. 

The Example of Feeling Like Having a Beer

Participant: I used to drink a lot of beer. But even though I don’t drink beer any more, whenever I see people drinking beer or see a beer commercial on TV, I feel like having a beer. And once the urge is there to drink the beer, there’s no turning back.

Dr. Berzin: So, here we have a circumstance for a karmic potential to ripen: the company of others, the influence of others. We need circumstances for things to ripen. He sees other people drinking beer and has the feeling, “I’d like to have a beer.” 

Participant: It’s based on past experience.

Dr. Berzin: Right. So, you have thought about and experienced it before. Then, being in the company of others who are drinking beer, you feel like having a beer. That brings on the urge to think about having it, which, in turn, leads to the mental action of thinking about having it. But then you come to a point where you have to decide, “Am I going to have the beer or not?” So, there’s a decision-making process that occurs here. That decision-making process is the action of thinking, and that action reaches its conclusion when you come to a decision to go get the beer. You said that once that urge comes to actually go have the beer, there’s no turning back: you actually do it. What you didn’t differentiate, though, were the two steps.

There are two different urges involved here. First, there is the inciting karmic impulse, the motivating urge that is part of the causal motivating drive, that brings you into thinking (the mental action), “I am going to have a beer,” and thinking about how you’re going to get it, “I have to get up and go to the refrigerator.” That thinking brings on another urge, the urging karmic impulse for the physical action of reaching for the bottle and bringing it to your mouth. That’s the contemporaneous motivating drive. 

Do you see the process that goes on here? Please, let’s think about it. 

[meditation]

Now, the urge is like a magnet. There are three phases of the contemporaneous motivating drive for any action: physical, verbal, or mental: (1) what brings you into the action, (2) what sustains the action, and (3) what brings it to a halt when you decide to stop the action, to end it. 

For example, even though you have an intention to do something and, so, an interest in doing it, once you actually start doing it, you might not really have the interest anymore. I’m thinking of the example of eating. I’m eating something. I had prepared three pieces of bread, which I intended to eat, and now I’m eating them. After the second piece of bread, I don’t really feel like eating any more, but I just keep on eating. So, there’s an urge, a second urge, that keeps you going, even though you might not have great interest in doing it anymore. That’s why Gyaltsabje explained, “The urge is the magnet that, by its own power, draws you to the object without needing to rely on the motivating intention.” 

Do you see the subtle differences that we’re drawing here? The urge is the magnet. There’s an initial urge that brings you into the action, and then there is a second urge that sustains the action. That’s why, in the other systems, the urging karmic impulse is identified with the energy. Asanga identifies both inciting karmic impulses for mental actions and urging karmic impulses for physical, verbal, or mental actions as mental urges, mental factors. But Vasubandhu, in his Vaibhashika texts, and Prasangika identify urging karmic impulses for physical and verbal actions – though not mental ones – as, very roughly speaking, a form of energy, which is a form of physical phenomena. 

Participant: What about the urge not to get up out of bed?

Dr. Berzin: But is there an intention to get up?

Participant: The intention is to lie in bed. 

Dr. Berzin:  But at some point, you intend to get up. Without an intention to get up, you wouldn’t get up – though the intention to get up was not there before. So, there are two actions here, with two different intentions. First is the action of staying in bed, accompanied by the intention to stay there and not get up because we don’t want to get up and also the urge that draws us into just lying there and not getting up. When we finally get up, it’s because first we felt like getting up after all and not continue lying in bed, which then brought on the urge and accompanying intention to get up.  

Are We Karmically Responsible for the Unintentional Consequences of Our Actions?

What about unintentional actions? “I did not intend to run over that insect on the road. I didn’t intend to kill it.” We’re always intending to do something. Intention is one of the five ascertaining subsidiary awarenesses.

Participant: But I intend to drive the car.

Dr. Berzin: You have the intention to drive the car, but you don’t have the intention to kill the insects that smash against the windshield – but it happens anyway. So, there’s an intention, but it’s to do something else. Are you karmically responsible for killing the insects that smash against your windshield even though you didn’t have the intention to kill them? Well, if you didn’t drive your car, you wouldn’t kill them. So, then it almost gets into a legal type of argument here. You’re always intending to do something. 

Now, you might not know what you feel like doing. “I feel like doing something. I don’t know what I feel like doing, but I feel like doing something.” Do you ever have that? “I feel like eating something, but I don’t know what. I’m just restless. I feel like doing something.” This brings on the urge to do something, accompanied by the intention of wanting to do something and intending to do it. This intention excludes not doing anything. You might not know exactly what it is that you want to do, but you intend to do something. Here, unrest and so on is the motivating emotion. There’s always some emotional content that’s there. 

Participant: The feeling or intention to have chocolate, for instance, is something that can ripen again and again.

Dr. Berzin: I think you’re confusing things here. Karma doesn’t ripen into a tendency. Feeling like having chocolate – which is the ripening of a tendency to do something you have done before – is something that can ripen again and again. But you wouldn’t necessarily act on that feeling. 

We haven’t gotten into what connects the karma, the urge, with the ripening of the karma, but there are tendencies. Tendencies don’t ripen from karma. Tendencies and potentials are karmic aftermaths of karmic actions. Karma is the impulse. It’s the magnet that gets you into an action and keeps you doing the action; it’s the drive.

Participant: Can you say that every thought you have is brought on by a karmic impulse and has karmic consequences?

Dr. Berzin: That gets into a difficult question. “I think to meditate on bodhichitta.” “I think to meditate on voidness.” Again, it depends on whether the thought is part of the motivation and what it’s dedicated toward. Is it going to act just as a cause for improving samsara, like when you build up positive karma without dedicating toward liberation or enlightenment? Is it dedicated toward gaining liberation? Is it dedicated toward enlightenment? Some thoughts can be very constructive. After all, it’s a thinking process that brings you toward liberation, even though the thinking is mixed with grasping for true existence. So that gets a little bit technical. A lot depends on the dedication. 

But to get back to what you were saying, we’re talking about karma, the urge. We’re not talking about the action itself in this system. We’re talking about this mental factor that, in a sense, drives the action. So, it’s subtler – though, of course, there can’t be an action without this karmic urge driving it. And according to this system, that driving of the action will, once the action has stopped, leave a tendency and a potential on the mental continuum. 

The tendencies and potentials (later, we’ll get into the difference between tendencies and potentials) are what ripen into feeling like repeating actions we’ve done in the past or feeling like getting into situations in which something similar to what we’ve done in the past happens to us. That feeling leads to actually repeating an action we’ve done before or experiencing a situation in which something similar happens back to us because it leads us think to do that thing and then to do it. It’s not so much that we think. There doesn’t always have to be a conscious thinking process, i.e., with verbal thoughts, involved. However, some sort of mental action is involved. 

Participant: Does feeling like doing something become a tendency?

Dr. Berzin: No. Just because I feel like killing somebody doesn’t mean that I think about actually doing it, let alone act on it. Feeling like doing something is not like a karmic urge  that draws one like a magnet into committing a physical, verbal or mental action. It doesn’t necessarily bring about an action and any consequences – unless we think to do it. Thinking to do it is a mental action. But just feeling like doing it is a mental factor and not a mental action involving a line of thought. 

Participant: In shamatha meditation, we try to weaken the glue between all these steps.

Dr. Berzin: It’s not so much in shamatha meditation that we do this. I think it’s more in the walking meditation: “Now I intend to lift the back of my foot. Now I’m lifting the back of my foot. Now I intend to move my foot forward. Now I am doing it. Now I intend to put the heel of my foot down. Now I am doing it. Now I intend to put the front part of…” That’s where you slow everything down to see all the steps that are involved. And there are different methods of doing it. One method is to comment; other methods are not to comment. There are many different techniques of shamatha, vipashyana, walking meditation – many variants.

Participant: So, you note all the steps involved.

Dr. Berzin: Well, the end product would be to be more aware of your intentions and to act on the constructive ones. It’s not just to note, “Now I am yelling at you. Now I am killing you. Now I’m feeling anger…” That’s not the point. The point, obviously, is to differentiate and then to discriminate what’s helpful and what’s not and then to act on the positive ones.  Recognizing that I feel hostility and things like that are certainly helpful, but that’s a little bit different. We’re not talking here about actions or emotions: we’re talking about intentions.

Participant: Can an urge arise without there first being a feeling of liking to do something?

Dr. Berzin: I don’t think so. The point is that there has to be a cause. There has to be some sort of sequence, something that links causes and effects. The urge, as Gyaltsabje says, is the magnet that, by itself, draws you into an action. He says it doesn’t have to rely on the intention that accompanies it in order to get its force, though there is an intention there to do something. For example, we feel like driving our car somewhere. There is the intention to drive, because we want to go somewhere and an urge that draws us into driving it. As we are driving, our action of driving becomes an action of driving over and killing insects on the road. We didn’t feel like going out and killing insects and we had no intention of doing that. Yet the urge that drew us into driving the car also drew us into the act of killing the insects. Here is an example of the urge that draws us into killing drawing us into that act by itself, without relying on an intention to kill. 

The intention is always conscious, but the consequences of our intended actions could be other than what we intended. The Western concept of “unintentional” just means we aren’t conscious of an intention, what we do is not done on purpose; not deliberate. We don’t really want to do a certain thing. “I didn’t intend to do that. I didn’t want to run over those insects on the road; I wanted to do something else.” So, what is it that gets us into running over the insects on the road with our car? It’s our intention to drive the car. 

Participant: But I don’t intend to run over insects.

Dr. Berzin: Well, we can’t guarantee what the result of what we do will be. We’re driving the car, and, at the same time, we’re killing the insects. The fact that our killing is unintended affects the strength of the karmic tendency that is built up. 

Naivety

Now, there’s naivety there: “I just didn’t know,” or “I didn’t want to think about the fact that, if I drive, I’m going to run over insects on the road.” “I didn’t want to think about the fact that I’m polluting the environment.” There are all sorts of things that we don’t think about. Nonetheless, things happen as a result of what we do. And, again, whether we do it consciously or not consciously is another variable that affects how heavy the result will be. So, it gets a little bit complicated here. 

There’s always an intention. Was there an intention to run over the insects? No. Did we feel like running over insects? No. However, there was an urge, accompanied by an intention, that brought me into the action, which was to drive the car to go some place. And there was a second karmic urge that kept me driving the car, which is what kept me running over the insects. So, that’s why I think Gyaltsabje is saying that the urge doesn’t need to rely on a motivating intention.  

Now it becomes very difficult to analyze, I must say. From driving our car and killing insects in the process, we build up a karmic tendency to drive our car again, and that results in feeing like driving it and intending to drive. From a certain point of view, we can say we also build up a karmic tendency to kill insects by driving over them. What does this karmic tendency ripen into? We would have to say, it ripens only into feeling like driving our car and intending to drive it. We can’t say it ripens into feeling like running over insects and intending to do it. The urge that draws us into the act of killing the insects, then, is accompanied by naivety as its motivating emotion.  

Naivety is one of the three poisonous attitudes: attachment, anger, and naivety. We’re just naive; we just don’t know. We don’t know or don’t want to think about the fact that when we drive the car, we will run over insects or that when we walk anywhere, we will probably step on insects on the street.

Participant: Going to the kitchen, you probably will step on some very tiny insect.

Dr. Berzin: Well, this is part of the all-pervasive suffering. Just having the type of body we have, we will inevitably kill things. There’s no way of avoiding it. We eat, we drink, we walk – we kill things.

Participant: Somebody said that even when you just move your arm through the air, you hit things, spirits or whatever.

Dr. Berzin: Right. This is why for the Jains, the final step of liberation is to just sit there and do nothing – starve to death; don’t move. And Buddha rejected that. He rejected that when he rejected severe ascetic practices.

Participant: They say that by grasping for true existence, you activate karma. Is that why the urge to have a beer comes up when you are with people who are drinking beer – that you grasp for the beer as though it were a truly existent thing out there? Is that when the urge comes? 

Dr. Berzin: Ah, now we get into the very complicated topic of what activates karma. It’s not just grasping for true existence that activates it.

Participant: It’s not feeling like doing something?

Dr. Berzin: Well, this gets very convoluted. There’s the craving (thirsting), there’s an obtainer attitude, which could be this grasping for true existence, and then there are the activated karmic potentials, all of which, together with other factors, network together to bring about a result. This is a very complex process, and we don’t really have the time to go into that. Also, it gets into the third and fourth laws of karma (which we’ll be discussing), which what determine what ripens. Sure, there is this grasping for true existence. It’s part of what activates karma. However, we’re grasping for true existence all the time. 

So, we have started what Buddha himself admitted is the most complicated topic, which is karma. We don’t want to go into all the complications of it – just what we can work with in meditation. And what we can work with is, as you said, slowing down the process so that we can recognize how we actually get into the various actions that we do so that we can develop discriminating awareness and be able to say, “This is helpful; this is not helpful,” and not to do what is not helpful. And even not doing – there’s an urge not to do something that keeps us from doing it. 

For example, we might feel like yelling at you, but it doesn’t lead to an urge to yell. This can happen in two ways. One way is, with discriminating awareness, immediately upon noticing that feeling and without having to think it through to discriminate not to yell. The other way is the feeling to yell leads to an urge to think about yelling and we come to the decision, with discriminating awareness, not to yell. In either case, we then will have a subtle feeling not to yell and that will lead to the intention not to yell and the urge to refrain from yelling. These are the steps involved with the constructive act of refraining from yelling at someone.