Lam-rim 43: How Does Karma Work; Initiation and Finale of an Action

It’s very interesting. This last weekend, Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche was here in Berlin, and he gave a lecture about sangha and the importance of sangha. He was referring not to the deepest Sangha Gem, the Arya Sangha, nor was he even referring so much to the monk and nun communities that represent this Sangha Gem, though, of course, they’re very, very important. He was using the term “sangha” in the Western colloquial way, which is to refer to the members of a Dharma center as being like the congregation of a church. He spoke about how such a community is very important for providing checks and balances in our practice. He said that people who practice just by themselves, not as part of a community, tend to be quite narcissistic. They think that their understanding, their way of practicing is correct and that they don’t need to check it with anybody else. 

Mind you, we have to admit that Dharma centers and communities of people who study together often include some very disturbed persons, which is the case in monasteries as well. Nevertheless, he said that if the members of the community are trying to live according to the basic teachings of the Buddha – such as the four noble truths (Buddha’s basic presentation that suffering has its causes and that it’s possible to get rid of those causes, basically, by applying correct understanding to oppose unawareness, the main cause), the four seals (that all conditioned phenomena are impermanent, etc.) and the eightfold noble path as explained primarily in the Theravada presentation of it (which is that it can refer to ordinary beings and not just Arya beings) – those members can, even if they’re not terribly far on the path, act as a checks and balance mechanism for each other. They can discuss back and forth and help each other not to go too astray on an individual ego trip. 

Of course, that implies that the community is harmonious and that the people there don’t just argue with each other. But in an ideal community or even in one that’s less than ideal (I don’t think any of the Dharma centers can realistically claim to be ideal communities), we can practice with other people, and we can discuss things together (in the monasteries, they debate back and forth; that’s the real checks and balance method for making sure that their understanding is correct). This is very, very valuable. This is what Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche spoke about. I would certainly agree with him that this is quite important for supporting our practice. 

Remember, in the discussion of the Three Jewels, the Sangha is often spoken of as a support. One has to be a little bit careful, of course, not to take actual refuge in the members of the center or Dharma community: they’re not the ultimate refuge by any means. Nevertheless, they’re a great help and a great support. And in a sense, they could also represent the Sangha Gem. So, that was a very interesting talk that he gave.

Then we spoke about the ways of putting that safe direction of Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha in our lives. The first level of doing that is avoiding the grossest level of causes of suffering, which is our karmic actions, our behavior, specifically our destructive behavior. This is what will help us to avoid worse rebirths. That led us into the whole discussion of karma.

Karma is an extremely difficult topic. It is always presented as the most difficult and complex of any of the teachings of the Buddha. It is also the most difficult to prove because most of the results of karmic actions ripen in future lives. It’s not something that we can prove by observation, by valid sense perception, or something like that. It’s even very difficult to prove logically that any of the teachings about karma are true. The only way, then, to gain confidence in the teachings on karma is to gain confidence in Buddha as a valid source of information, which leads to the whole discussion of why Buddha is a valid source of information. Of course, that’s very difficult to argue, because we could similarly argue that the Bible is a valid source of information or that the Koran is a valid source of information. 

Voidness and Dependent Arising

So, what makes the Buddha the reliable source of information that we rely on? That’s not an easy one. It’s said that because of what Buddha taught concerning concentration – which all the Indian teachers taught as well, so that’s nothing special – we can achieve concentration ourselves and, in that way, verify that what he taught was true. But more specifically, Buddha taught dependent arising and voidness – voidness in terms of dependent arising. This is what Tsongkhapa praises the Buddha for in his Praises to Dependent Arising. He says, “How could anyone find as a gateway for praising you, O Guardian, anything more wondrous than your statements about dependent arising?”

Dependent arising is something that we can understand on several levels. One level of understanding it is in terms of the 12 links of dependent arising, which are what describe the mechanism of samsara and how we can get out of samsara by stopping the factors described in the links – basically, stopping or getting rid of the things that cause the karmic tendencies to ripen so that the tendencies no longer can be imputed on the mental continuum. Then there are the deeper levels of dependent arising, which are that we can only establish the existence of things (1) dependently on mental labeling or (2) dependently on what’s relative, examples being that good can only be established relative to bad, long relative to short, etc.

Dependent arising in relation to the 12 links is dependent arising explained in terms of the conventional or relative truth of what we experience. Dependent arising in relation to mental labeling or to relativity is dependent arising explained in terms of deepest truth.

What Buddha taught about voidness in terms of dependent arising are things that we can verify through experience: they are effective. This is the interesting thing. It’s not so much that they are true, because we could say that whatever is said in the Bible is true. Truth is very difficult to define, actually. What is true? 

Here, in the context of the Buddha’s teachings, what we are speaking about is how to overcome suffering. Buddha didn’t come to teach geography or mathematics or anything like that. So, these teachings, particularly those about dependent arising and voidness, are true in the sense that if we actually gain stable realizations of them and we have mindfulness of them all the time through proper concentration, we do in fact get rid of all suffering – forever. This is something that we can start to gain some confidence in, even in much earlier stages, before we’ve achieved the full non-conceptual realization of voidness. Just a little bit of understanding works; it helps. So, it’s on that basis that we can gain confidence in the Buddha.

There’s a further argument, which says that the only way that the Buddha was able to gain his realization was through compassion; therefore, there would be no reason for Buddha to deceive us. But we could also use that same argument for any religious leader – that they achieved their goal because of compassion, etc., and, therefore, they had no reason to deceive us either. So, that is a secondary reason, I think, rather than the main reason that we would rely on.

So, karma is something that we need to work with according to our level of understanding. I think the only way that we can really do that is, later on, on the stages of the path, to apply the understanding of voidness to cause and effect. How cause and effect works is a very difficult topic, one that could cause us to question a lot of things in the Dharma presentation of karma. 

How Does Something from the Side of the Object Affect the Heaviness of a Karmic Result? 

It’s very difficult to understand how some of the variables affecting karma can have any effect on us. For instance, if we kill Mahatma Gandhi or we kill a sheep, there’s a big difference in terms of the heaviness of the karma of taking a life. Well, why should something on the side of the object affect us? And what happens if we don’t know that we killed somebody? How could those things have any effect on our mental continuums? These are very, very difficult questions. We could say, “Well, Mahatma Gandhi had the possibility to benefit others.” Let’s say we kill two children. One child might be a failure in life and turn out to be an addict or a criminal, and the other one might find a cure for cancer. How do we know? The future is not set. It’s not as though we can predict that one child is going to find the cure for cancer and the other one is going to be a criminal.

Participant: That’s an interesting question. It is easier to understand that the act of killing will in itself have an effect on my continuum. But why should something from the side of the object make a difference?

Dr. Berzin: That’s exactly my question. But Buddha said so. So, do we believe it just because Buddha said so? Or is there a way in which we can make sense out of it? This is the interesting question.

Participant: I could also argue, “Why should the act of killing have an effect?”

Dr. Berzin: Why should the act itself of killing have any effect on us? Well, it builds up a habit. We get into the habit of killing. We had a big discussion about why that would produce suffering for us.

Participant: It does from its own side, no?

Dr. Berzin: Right, it produces suffering for us. Why? We could say killing produces suffering for the person we kill. We could also argue that then we’re going to make a lot of enemies and that they’re going to kill us in return. If we yell at other people, they’re going to yell back at us. Chances are that that’s what will happen, but there’s no guarantee. Also, there’s some disturbing emotion there. We’re acting under the influence of a disturbing emotion. That that could have an effect on our mental continuums is something that we can understand. It makes sense. But killing one’s mother as opposed to stepping on an ant – why should that make a difference? These are very difficult questions.

Participant: It makes a difference if you are aware of the act.

Dr. Berzin: What happens if you’re not aware?

Participant: If you kill, but you don’t know that there will be a negative effect or that there is anything wrong with killing, then maybe it doesn’t have an effect.

Dr. Berzin: That’s naivety. 

Does Unknowingly Killing Someone Have Karmic Consequences?

Let’s take an example. In many cultures, people shoot a gun in the air to celebrate. Let’s say you shoot a gun in the air and somebody is killed because of it. You don’t know that somebody was killed, and the people next to the person who was killed have no idea who shot it, so they’re not going to come after you. Does that have a karmic effect? From a Buddhist point of view, yes, it does. 

We had a very interesting discussion about how most people are emotionally affected when they kill somebody. Even the most cold-blooded person could be emotionally affected, if only to the extent that they block their feelings or something like that. But, here, you don’t even know that you killed somebody, so there’s no emotional effect.

Participant: But the fact that you don’t know means that your mind is obscured. Buddha’s mind is omniscient. If you are aiming for omniscience, you need to eliminate the state of mind of not knowing something.

Dr. Berzin: But why would the limitation of not knowing have any effect on you? This would be saying that just because I’m ignorant of something, I’m going to experience a negative effect. I’m ignorant of quantum mechanics. Does that have a negative effect on me? I’m ignorant of knowing the telephone number of everybody on the planet. Does that have a negative effect on me?

Participant: One can’t say that being ignorant has no effect. So, I would agree with him. There’s an unawareness of everybody’s telephone number, and there’s an unawareness of killing. I don’t see that it makes a big difference.

Dr. Berzin: So, you’re saying that your unawareness is what actually produces the problem.

Participant: But that unawareness is not what makes it negative, even though it’s part of the problem: If you were aware of the scope of your actions, you would be able to avoid negative actions more easily. But just not knowing something doesn’t make whatever you don’t know good or bad.

Participant: But your actions have consequences, even if you don’t know.

Dr. Berzin: Right. However, you don’t know what the effect of your actions will be.

Participant: In the case of killing somebody, the consequences are very great.

Dr. Berzin: But the consequences might be quite different from what you think they will be. Let’s say you make a donation to a charity that gives the money to another country, and then the country is taken over by some warlord who uses the money to sponsor growing heroin. You gave this aid in good faith, but then it’s used for something completely different. So, we don’t know the consequences.

Participant: So, bodhichitta is not enough.

Dr. Berzin: Right. Altruism, bodhichitta, is not enough to guarantee the effects of our actions on others. 

Well, Buddhism is always speaking about the consequences of our actions on ourselves as being the important factor because one can’t guarantee what the effect on others is going to be. Now, is this being too self-interested – being worried about what the consequences of your actions will be for you? That’s not really altruism. If you were really altruistic, you would be more concerned about how much benefit your actions would bring to others.

Participant: Your actions still reflect on others, though.

Are Right and Wrong Established by Divine Law?

Dr. Berzin: There are the two mental factors that, according to Vasubandhu, are involved in making an action constructive or destructive. His definitions for the two mental factors that are always involved in constructive actions are (1) having a sense of values, which means respecting positive qualities and those who possess them, and (2) having scruples, the sense to restrain from grossly negative behavior. Destructive actions, then, are always accompanied by the opposite of these: having no sense of values and no scruples. However, he doesn’t say why these two mental factors are always involved. That comes back to a discussion we had before. 

Remember, we had a class in which I asked why you personally don’t cheat people – so, not for some big Dharma reason. Why don’t you cheat people? For most people, it’s not because they fear a terrible rebirth. For most people, it’s because it just seems right. Not cheating people just seems like the right thing to do. This is the mental factor that Vasubandhu is talking about. You have this sense to refrain from doing what you think is wrong. Well, that sense of what is right and wrong is very much conditioned by society, isn’t it? That then raises the questions, is this sense of right and wrong established by some divine law? Is it established by society? These are difficult questions. There’s no clear answer, but these are things that we need to analyze and think about.

Participant: It definitely has an effect.

Dr. Berzin: But it has an effect. For example, if somebody from a different religion marries my sister, I might think that I have the right to kill my sister and the man that she married. And my society would reinforce that. So, is that right? Or is there some absolute standard of what’s right and wrong? This is very difficult, isn’t it? What makes us think that our system of what’s right and wrong is correct?

Participant: One can look to see whether it harms others. I think one can determine whether an action is wrong if it harms others.

Dr. Berzin: This is another basis for ethics. In Western ethics, there are usually two main presentations, two approaches. One determines right and wrong according to the consequences of an action – for example, whether it harms others (and Buddhists would have a variation on that: whether it harms me). The other one determines right and wrong according to principles.

Participant: Whether it harms me was the point that you raised before. But I don’t understand this point you just mentioned about consequences.

Dr. Berzin: According to one approach in Western ethics, the consequences are what are most important, not the principle of what’s right and wrong. So, these are two ways of defining an ethical system.

Participant: So, if the consequences harm me, then they also harm others.

Dr. Berzin: Well, what you would argue from a Mahayana point of view is that if the consequences harm you, they hinder your ability to help others. If you, as a consequence of your actions, are reborn as a chicken, your ability to help others is hindered. However, if you are reborn as a human being with all the various endowments of a precious human life, you are better able to help others – much more than you could do as a chicken.

Participant: But it’s not just that you are prevented from helping others. I think you also then create the cause for harming others.

Dr. Berzin: Well, certainly it’s described in the texts that the beings in the hell realms kill each other, torture each other, fight with each other, etc.

The Voidness of Cause and Effect

But what I would like to bring into the discussion here is the point about the voidness of cause and effect. Sometimes we want to find something that connects the cause to the effect, as if the effect and the cause were two balls connected by some sort of stick. Buddhism does describe a connecting mechanism, in a sense, in terms of karmic tendencies, the various factors that cause them to ripen, and so on. So, it describes how there’s a continuum from the cause to the effect in terms of our behavior and our experience. Also, according to Vaibhashika and Madhyamaka, there is a certain subtle, invisible form that accompanies an action, the so-called nonrevealing form of an action. It’s maybe similar to a muscle memory. For instance, a vow is a nonrevealing form. It acts to restrain our bodies from committing the actions we have vowed to avoid. The revealing form is obtained with the action of taking the vow, and it continues as part of the mental continuum after that action has ceased. The only way of losing this nonrevealing form is by making a firm decision no longer to act in that way, whether in a positive or a negative way. Only then do we lose this nonrevealing form. So, continuity is discussed not only in terms of non-physical things like karmic tendencies but also in terms of subtle forms of physical phenomenon. 

Now, that describes the mechanism of the connection between cause and effect. But why does it work? I think this is where we have to get into the discussion of voidness – that the result does not already exist inside the cause, waiting to pop out. Nor is the result totally nonexistent at the time of the cause, meaning that it arises from nothing, from no cause – that a nonexistent thing becomes an existent thing. These are things that we discussed when we studied the voidness of cause and effect. Nevertheless, due to various causes and conditions, things work. Results happen. So, one of the conditions can be whether it’s a chicken or a person like Mahatma Gandhi that you kill. Somehow that acts as a condition that affects the result. How does it affect the result? Well, Buddhism describes how it affects the result, but why does it affect it? That’s a very difficult question. From one point of view, we could say that, because Buddhism says that everything is interrelated, everything affects the result. 

Participant: Killing Mahatma Gandhi, I think, triggers much more energy than killing an insect.

Dr. Berzin: So, the whole world freaks out. 

What about killing somebody who is about to find a cure for cancer? That’s a difficult one. 

Participant: But you don’t know that they’ll find it.

Dr. Berzin: Well, you don’t know. These are the kinds of arguments that are used against abortion. Who knows what that child could do?

Participant: If the child doesn’t live, it won’t be able to find the cure.

Dr. Berzin: But does the result already exist inside the cause – namely, that this unborn child will find the cure for cancer and that that result is just waiting to pop out when the child reaches a certain age? You can’t say that either.

Participant: But maybe you can say that the not-yet-happening of finding a cure ceases to be a potential when you kill the person.

Dr. Berzin: Well, you might just be postponing the ripening of that potential by aborting that fetus. Maybe it’ll be born as a human another time and then find the cure. I don’t know. These are difficult questions. 

I think that in approaching these questions, it’s important to consider that there are so many different causes and conditions that affect things and that there’s not some sort of actual “thing,” like a stick, that connects them to you. But still, how is it that the amount of benefit that the object could bring you or the amount of kindness someone showed you – like your mother or your father – have an impact your mental continuum? What if you didn’t know it was your mother or father? That can happen, especially in a war. When you drop a bomb, you don’t know who you drop the bomb on. “Whoa! My mother was in that house!” 

Having Confidence in Our Reasons for Refraining from Acting Destructively

Anyway, these are the issues. And we’ve been looking very critically at karma, cause and effect, because I think it is very important to be critical about how karma works and to have confidence in our reasons for refraining from acting destructively. Again, I think that for most of us, refraining isn’t about fearing worse rebirths, because most of us don’t really take rebirth seriously. So, for us Westerners, I think it really does come down to having a sense of right and wrong. It just doesn’t feel right to act destructively.

Participant: For example, an excuse in the United States is that everybody can have a gun.

Dr. Berzin: Right. This is the right to self-defense. It’s not the right to kill others – except for the right to go out and kill animals, to hunt them.

Participant: So, it is a right to kill.

Dr. Berzin: Yeah, this is difficult. This is what I said, that you have things like honor killings. “You married my sister, and you’re from a different religion; so, it’s right to kill you.”

Again, is there an absolute way to determine what is true, what is right? Some religions will say that what’s right is determined by God. Others will say what’s right is determined by the legislature of the government, the king, or the culture.

Participant: Also, if you want to take a highest yoga initiation, it’s important not to kill. So, you know you cannot kill.

Dr. Berzin: Right. There are the various vows. Whether it’s in anuttarayoga tantra, highest tantra, or monk’s vows or lay vows, the vow not to kill is included. The vow is there basically because you want to avoid suffering. This is the way that it’s always stated. You want to avoid the consequences of that negative action. Sure, there are plenty of religions that also teach “be good; follow the laws. Otherwise, you’ll go to hell.” But is Buddhism like that? Does it really come down to that?

Participant: It has more to do with awareness.

Dr. Berzin: Right – namely, the ability to discriminate. But you could say the same thing: “I am able to discriminate what the religious laws are and what they aren’t.” So, I’m a good lawyer. This is a very difficult question, isn’t it? 

The point is to do what Buddha said to do: “Examine my teachings, like buying gold; don’t just accept them.” I think one of the most difficult ones to accept are the teachings on karma. 

Anyway, we’ve had various discussions dealing with the factors that determine the completeness of a karmic action – more specifically, the completeness of the pathway of a karmic impulse. If some of these factors are missing, the action would, in the case of a destructive action, still be destructive, but the negative force built up from it would be less and the negative consequences less severe. 

We've seen that these four factors are: 

1. A basis at which the action is directed. In the case of killing, the basis is a being that could die. 
2. A motivating mental framework: (a) unmistaken distinguishing – we know who it is that we’re intending to hurt; (b) a motivating intention – we have a certain aim in mind; (c) a motivating emotion or attitude – in the case of destructive actions, it would be one of the three poisonous disturbing emotions. 
3. The implementation of a method (to cause the action to occur) – we actually do something to bring about the result. 
4. A finale – with taking a life, the other person has to die; with lying, the other person has to believe the lie and be fooled by it; with speaking harshly, the other person has to be hurt by what we say.

We started last time to discuss the three phases of the implementation of a method to cause an action to occur. Each phase will have its own effect on the karmic results. We used the example of hunting for deer.

• The preliminary actions – going in the woods and stalking a deer
• The actual action – shooting it
• The follow-up actions – taking it home, skinning it, and eating it 

The follow-up actions can be very difficult to analyze. If we take the meat from the deer that we shot and practice generosity by giving it to the poor or the homeless in order to feed them, did we do something destructive or constructive? This is a difficult one. It’s similar to giving stolen goods to the sangha, the monastic community – which, according to the bodhisattva vows, is not too cool to do. So, these are difficult points. But certainly, giving the meat to the homeless would make the karmic action of killing much less severe.

Participant: It’s a mixture of destructive and constructive.

Dr. Berzin: It’s a mixture.

We also looked at the ways in which an action can be initiated – namely, by implementing a method that causes it to occur – and the ways in which an action can reach its finale. There are four possible combinations regarding the initiation of an action and the reaching of a finale. Here, again, we will be looking at the actual action and not the preliminary or follow-up actions. These permutations help us to determine the extent to which an action is karmically committed, if at all, and the strength with which the results will ripen.

[1] Initiated Actions That Reach Their Finale

We may initiate an action with a specific goal in mind and that action reaches its intended finale. In other words, the method we implement to cause a specific action to occur brings about its intended result. For example, we started stabbing the person we intended to kill, and the action of killing reached its intended result – namely, the person actually dies. In this case, the initiator of the action has karmically committed the action of killing. 

However, if the initiator dies before the action reaches its finale – so, before the other person dies – then although the action has been karmically committed, Vasubandhu says that the results experienced by the initiator will be lighter because the initiator will have taken another rebirth or be in the state in-between lives (bardo) before the finale is reached. In other words, a prerequisite for the pathway of the karmic impulse for the action of killing to be complete –that the basis dies before the initiator does – is not fulfilled. 

Remember, there can be a long time span between when we stab the person and when the person actually dies. During that time, a lot of things could happen. We could regret the action. We could try to take care of the person, though they might eventually die anyway. Many things can happen in between to affect the strength of the karmic consequences. 

The same would hold true when hiring somebody to kill somebody else: if the person who does the hiring dies before the victim, the results will be lighter on the instigator. 

Three Different Criteria for Instigating the Rape of a Third Party 

However, there’s an interesting example that’s given: What about hiring somebody to rape somebody else’s wife or ordering soldiers to go out and rape all the women in the village? In that case, whether or not the instigator, the one who sends somebody else out, has karmically committed the rape has to be analyzed. 

There are three possibilities: (1) If the instigator’s motivation is hostility and the aim is to humiliate the woman or to cause her harm, the action reaches its finale when the victim experiences either humiliation or harm. (2) If the instigator’s motivation is desire for and attachment to power – wanting to have power over the woman – the action of rape reaches its finale when the instigator feels he’s gained power over the victim. (3) If the instigator’s motivation is desire and attachment to sexual pleasure, then although he might initiate the action of rape and even watch it, the act can only reach its finale when the person who actually commits the rape experiences the physical pleasure of sexual contact. The finale of the act, in this case, has nothing to do with the instigator. The instigator may experience mental pleasure, vicarious mental pleasure, but not the actual physical pleasure. So, since the action has not reached its finale with respect to what the instigator both did and experienced, the instigator has not committed the karmic action of rape. 

This starts to sound like a law textbook, doesn’t it?

Participant: So, the person has not committed the action of rape?

Dr. Berzin: Right. However, if the instigator’s words with which he told somebody to commit the rape were motivated by desire for power, hostility, naivety, etc., the instigator would have committed the destructive action of thinking covetously, divisively or distortedly. It was not that the verbal action of giving the order reached its finale when the person who committed the rape experienced the pleasure of sexual contact. The instigator’s mental action, however, did reach its intended finale when he reached the decision to give the order.

[2] Initiated Actions That Do Not Reach Their Finale

We may initiate a specific action, but its finale is not reached. In other words, the method we implement to cause a specific action to occur doesn’t bring about its intended effect. For example, we might stab somebody with the intention to kill them, but the person doesn’t die from the wound. Or we might intentionally lie to somebody or ask somebody else lie for us, but the person that is lied to either doesn’t hear or understand the lie or doesn’t believe what was said. In such cases, the intended action is not karmically committed and becomes, instead, a different action. We intended to take a life, or we intended to deceive with a lie, but, in fact, all we accomplished was wounding somebody or speaking idle words.

Participant: So, if I only wounded somebody, I didn’t complete the act. But I still had the intention to kill.

Dr. Berzin: Right. You had a negative intention. You had the malevolent thought to harm somebody. However, the action that you actually committed was wounding them; you didn’t actually kill them. So, the karmic result will be a result of having that negative thought and wounding the person, rather than that of killing. 

[3] Actions Not Initiated but the Finale of Such Imagined Actions Occur

We may not initiate a specific type of action and yet a finale of that type of action occurs. In other words, we may not implement any method to cause a specific type of action to take place, and yet the finale of that type of action happens. For example, we may be in a room with somebody, and though we do not do anything in particular, the person has a heart attack and dies. Even if we had previously wished the person dead, we would still not have committed a karmic action of killing. To imagine that our presence was a jinx – that it was our presence that killed the person – would be a fantasy of paranoia. Sometimes people who are paranoid say things such as how their team lost the game because they were there and watched it. “I was there. That’s why we lost.” 

Initiating Actions That Bring about Unintended Results 

A variation of this is implementing an active method to cause a specific action to occur, but the method implemented brings about an unintended result. So, we do not intentionally implement a method to cause the action that occurs to take place. For example, we scream harsh words at somebody to scold them, and the person has a heart attack and dies. 

That happened, actually, to my grandfather. Some beggar came to the door and asked for money, and my grandfather said, “I’m not going to give you any money, but you’re welcome to come in and join us for dinner.” The person screamed and yelled all sorts of nasty things at my grandfather, and very shortly later, he had a heart attack and died. So, these things happen.

This is a form of unintentional action. There was an intention to yell with harsh words, but there was no intention for that action to reach its finale by killing the person. So, to analyze the karmic results, we have to look at the factors that are present. An unintentional act still has its consequences.

[4] Actions That Are Neither Initiated nor Reach a Finale

We may not initiate an action, and the finale of such action is not, in fact, reached. For instance, we may shoot somebody just to wound them, not to kill them, and the person doesn’t die from the shot, or we may yell at somebody just to get them to listen to us, not to cause them to have a heart attack, and they don’t have a heart attack and don’t die. So, in both cases, we haven’t committed the action of killing. In that first example, however, we have committed the action of wounding someone by shooting them.

In short, we have to both intentionally initiate an action by implementing a method that causes the action to occur, and the action has to reach its intended finale in order for the karmic action to be complete. If we initiate an action and that action doesn’t reach its intended finale, the action can either be an incomplete karmic action of that type, or it can deconstruct into another type of action altogether. On the other hand, if we don’t do anything that could cause a certain finale to happen – as opposed to consciously refraining from taking an action – or we do something intended to bring about a certain result and an unintended result happens instead, then we have to use the analysis of karmic pathways to determine whether or not we’ve committed a karmic action at all and, if we have, what karmic action we’ve actually committed. A lot of factors have to be present, and the analysis can get rather complex.

Unintended Results of Our Actions

Participant: If, for example, a father commits suicide, the son and the wife might go crazy with grief. 

Dr. Berzin: Did the person’s suicide cause them to go crazy? Well, this is a difficult one because of the variable of the initiator of the action, the one who committed suicide, no longer being alive at the time of that result. But let’s say that the person lives. They tried to commit suicide, but they didn’t actually die. Are they responsible for the family members being harmed by going crazy? The person didn’t intend for that result to happen, but the finale of someone else going crazy with grief did occur. Can we even say their attempted suicide was a cause of the harm, or was it simply a circumstance for the family members to cause themselves the harm of going crazy? But even if it just provided circumstances, we have no idea what the effect of our actions will be. 

Participant: With most things, we don’t know what’s going to happen.

Dr. Berzin: Right. For example, I make you a meal with the full intention to please you, but you hate it or have an allergic reaction and get sick. 

Participant: When people get hurt by someone else’s words, in most cases, there was no intention for them to be hurt.

Dr. Berzin: Right. You can say something without having any intention whatsoever to hurt the other person’s feelings, but they can get really hurt anyway. So, have you committed the negative karmic action of speaking harshly? Though hurting somebody else’s feelings was not the intention, that was the result. 

Participant: It was because of ignorance.

Dr. Berzin: Whose ignorance, yours or theirs? Wasn’t why the other person got angry and felt hurt by what you said basically because of his or her own psychological and emotional problems.

Participant: It’s the same with environmental issues. Here, in the West, we use all this electricity, oil, and so on, and so many people suffer from this exploitation, but we don’t intend for them to suffer.

Dr. Berzin: Right. We use electricity, oil and water without the intention to hurt future generations. Nevertheless, hurting them will undoubtedly be a result. Is there a karmic action there? There is a karmic action. Are we responsible? This is the whole point, isn’t it?

Participant: In a way, we are responsible.

Dr. Berzin: Are we? Even if we have no idea of what the consequences might be? That then gets us into the whole Western trip of guilt – feeling guilty. Should I feel guilty when something I say in perfect innocence hurts your feelings? Or do I just say you’re being stupid and silly?

Participant: It has to do with not being naive.

Dr. Berzin: Well, with the issue of the environment, of energy and so on, we have naivety about cause and effect. But what kind of naivety is involved in hurting somebody’s feelings by saying something totally innocent? 

Participant: All-pervasive suffering.

Dr. Berzin: All-pervasive suffering? Well, all pervasive suffering has to do with rebirth. I think what we’re talking about here has more to do with what Shantideva says – that infantile people are impossible to please. You say the nicest words to them with good intentions, and they get angry with you.

Participant: But it’s also not knowing everything.

Dr. Berzin: This comes back to what you said – that the problem here is our limitation: we’re not Buddhas. We don’t know what the effects of our behavior will be. So, what are the consequences of that? Does that mean we shouldn’t do anything – because we might make a mistake?

Participant: How do you not do anything?

Dr. Berzin: Right, how do you not do anything? 

Participant: I think that when it comes to other people, how aware I am of their psychological problems makes a difference. If I’m really not aware of someone’s psychological problems, there’s not much I can do. I could talk about collecting magazines or something like that and that person’s feelings could be hurt. But in the case of my husband, for example, if I know that his neurotic point might be triggered by something I’m thinking to say, I could, in that case, watch my mind before speaking.

Dr. Berzin: So there’s a difference, she says, between saying something that hurts somebody else’s feelings when you have no idea about what will hurt their feelings and purposely saying something that you know will hurt the other person.

Participant: No, I don’t do it on purpose.

Dr. Berzin: It would be because of a lack of mindfulness, then, that you would say something that hurt him. Well, there’s a whole list of things that can cause you to commit a negative action. It’s in the list of what can cause you to violate your vows. One of them is just forgetting, not being mindful – not paying attention to what you say. That’s one of the reasons for not getting drunk: you lose all self-control, usually, in terms of what you say.

Which Is More Consequential, the Intention or the Finale of an Action?

Participant: I have a question. There are two cases: In one case, a person shoots a bullet in the air to celebrate and accidentally kills someone; in the other one, a person intentionally tries to kill someone with a bullet but misses. Which one would be heavier?

Dr. Berzin: Well, which is heavier, the intention or the finale of the action? 

Participant: The intention. It’s more directly correlated with your own mind.

Dr. Berzin: This has to do with what I was asking before: Why would the action reaching its finale have any effect on you? But it does, doesn’t it?

Participant: I would say the intention has much more effect because it’s directly correlated to one’s mind. It has more effect than some unclear thing that’s far away and that one cannot be aware of it. 

Dr. Berzin: So, you think that the intention is stronger than the action reaching its finale. I don’t know the answer to that. Does anybody else have an opinion?

Participant: I’d agree with Mark. But also, if somebody wants to shoot somebody else, there is a motivation of hostility.

Dr. Berzin: Right. And if you shoot a bullet up in the air for celebration, you’re just being naive if you think that it is not going to come down and possibly hit somebody. Well, is hostility a stronger negative action than naivety? All of them have degrees, don’t they?

Participant: It comes with naivety.

Dr. Berzin: Right. Hostility comes with naivety and, in fact, naivety comes with all destructive emotions. 

So, what can we conclude from all of this? Even when we have the best of intentions or have no intention to harm, we still have to be mindful. It’s not enough to have good intentions.

Participant: In German, we have the saying, “Good intentions are sometimes the worst.” 

Dr. Berzin: In English, we have the saying, “The road to hell is paved with good intentions.” 

Participant: I’m wondering. I had a case with a three-year old child. A baby brother was born, and the three-year old saw him as a rival. He said, “I want to kill this rival!” The child was just three years old. He had no control, in a way. He did not kill, but he had the intention, “I want to kill my brother.” What kind of negative karmic action is that?

Dr. Berzin: Well, a lot depends on whether he actually does something to kill the baby, like picking it up and throwing it on the floor or something like that. But negative intentions – so, here, while thinking with malice – have an effect only if it reaches its finale of making the decision to actually kill the baby. Otherwise, it’s just idle thought. Then the question is, if the action reaches its finale, is the karmic action weakened by the fact that it’s a three-year old who commits it rather than an adult, who, in a sense, should know better? I don’t know. What do you think? 

What about a hunting animal, a lion that kills a deer? Does the lion know better, or does it simply act out of instinct? This three-year old might also have been acting out of instinct. Does acting out of instinct make the action a heavier karmic action? There’s another variable that we’ll get to, which is whether the action has been thought over, decided upon and then carried out or not thought over and decided beforehand and just carried out on the spur of the moment. A three-year old probably doesn’t think it over. Or does it? 

Does a lion think it over before deciding to kill? Well, it slowly creeps up to the deer and waits, and it goes where the wind won’t carry its scent in the direction of the deer. So, it must decide that it has a chance to kill this deer before it carries out this hunting strategy. So even when acting out of instinct, I think the lion kills intentionally after having thought it over and decided to try.

I think the point of all of this is that even if you do something unintentionally or accidentally or you do it because you don’t know any better or don’t intend for the action to reach its finale, there can still be some negative karmic consequences. Then, of course, the question is why? But that’s a very difficult question. Why should there be negative karmic consequences?

Anyway, perhaps we should leave it here.