Ancient India
Hinduism & Buddhism
Adapted excerpt
from
The Dhammapada,
by Eknath Easwaran;
Like
the Buddha, the sages of the Upanishads did not find
the world capricious. Nothing in it happens by chance – not
because events are predestined, but because everything is
connected by cause-and-effect. Thoughts are included in this
view, because they both cause things to happen and are aroused by
things that happen. What we think has
consequences
for the world around us, for it conditions how we act.
All
these consequences (for others, for the world, and for ourselves) are our personal responsibility. Sooner or later, due to the
laws of nature, it is sure to
come back to us.
Someone who is always angry, to take a simple example, is bound to
provoke
anger from others. More subtly,
a man who pollutes the environment will eventually have to breathe
the air and drink the water that he has helped to poison.
These
are illustrations of what Hinduism
and Buddhism
call the law of karma.
Karma
means something done, whether as cause or effect. Actions
in harmony with dhamma,
or the laws of nature, bring good karma and add to health and
happiness. Selfish actions, at odds with the rest of life, bring unfavorable karma and pain.
In
this view, there is no need for a God to punish and reward us, we
punish and reward ourselves. This was not regarded as a
tenet
of religion but
as a law of nature, as universal as the law of gravity. No one has
stated it more clearly than St.
Paul:
“As you sow, so shall you reap. With whatever measure you mete out
to others, with the same measure it shall be meted out to you.”
For
the Upanishadic sages, however, the books of karma could only be
cleared within the natural world. Unpaid karmic debts and unfulfilled
desires do not vanish when the physical body dies. They are forces
which remain in the universe to quicken
life again at the moment of conception
when conditions are right for past karma to be fulfilled. We live and
act, and everything we do goes into what we think at the present
moment, so that at death the mind is the sum of everything we have
done and everything we still desire to do. That sum of forces has
karma to reap, and when the right context comes – the right
parents, the right society, the right epoch
– the bundle of energy that is the germ
of your personality is born again. We are not just limited physical
creatures with a beginning in a particular year and an end after
fourscore years and
ten.
We go back eons,
and some of the contents of the deepest unconscious are the dark
drives of an evolutionary heritage much older than the human race.
The
law of karma simply states that cause and effect apply universally
and that the effect is of the nature of the cause. Every event,
mental or physical, has to have effects, whether in the mind, in
action, or in both – and each such effect becomes a cause itself.
Definitions
sages
— wise
people, especially ones whose wisdom comes from long reflection on
deep questions; in Indian contexts, often the ancient teacher-poets
who composed scriptures.
capricious
— acting
on sudden whims, without reason; unpredictable in a fickle way. A
capricious universe would be one where things just happen for no
reason.
predestined
— fixed
in advance by some outside power, so that the outcome cannot be
changed.
cause-and-effect
— the
principle that every event is produced by prior conditions and in
turn produces further events; nothing arises in isolation.
consequences
— the
results or effects that follow from an action, especially ones the
actor is answerable for.
provoke
— to
stir up or call forth a reaction, usually a strong one like anger.
subtly
— in
a fine, not-obvious way; requiring attention to notice.
Hinduism
—
the family of religious and philosophical traditions native to the
Indian subcontinent, rooted in religious
texts called the
Vedas and Upanishads.
Buddhism
— the
tradition founded by Siddhartha Gautama (the Buddha) in the 5th
century BCE, teaching that suffering arises from craving and
ignorance and can be ended by following the Eightfold Path.
karma
— literally
"action" or "deed"; the principle that
intentional actions leave consequences that shape future experience,
in this life or beyond.
dhamma//dharma — a
many-layered word meaning the natural law or order of things, the
truth of how reality works, and also the teaching that describes that
truth.
tenet
of religion — a
principle or doctrine held by a religion.
St.
Paul —
the first-century Jewish-Roman apostle whose letters make up much of
the New Testament; a foundational figure in Christian theology.
quicken
— to
bring to life, to animate; an old word used especially for the moment
when a fetus first stirs in the womb.
conception
— the
moment an egg is fertilized and a new life begins to form.
epoch
— a
particular period of history, usually one with a distinctive
character ("the Victorian epoch," "our epoch").
germ
— the tiny starting
point from which something grows. (Not the disease sense.)
fourscore
years and ten — ninety
years.
eons
(also spelled aeons) —
immensely long stretches of time.
Questions
What
connects everything that happens in the world?
What example did
the author use of a person who’s own behavior comes back to them?
According
to the passage, who punishes and rewards us?
What
is another name for the law of karma?
What
is an example of another universal law of nature?
According
to the passage, what happens to unpaid karmic debts and unfulfilled
desires when the body dies?
“As
you sow, so shall you reap. With whatever measure you mete out to
others, with the same measure it shall be meted out to you.”
This
is a saying built out of two farming-and-marketplace images that were
everyday life for the people who first heard it. Once you see the
pictures, the meaning becomes very plain.
"As
you sow, so shall you reap."
Sowing
means scattering seed in a field. Reaping means cutting down and
gathering the crop that grows from that seed months later. A farmer
who sows wheat reaps wheat. A farmer who sows thistles reaps
thistles. You cannot plant one thing and harvest another, and you
cannot plant nothing and harvest something. The harvest always
matches the seed, and it always comes later than the planting.
Used
as a saying about human life, it means: the kind of actions you
put into the world are the kind of results that will come back to
you, even if the results take a long time to appear.
"With
whatever measure you mete out to others, with the same measure it
shall be meted out to you."
This
second image comes from the marketplace. In the ancient world, grain
and flour and oil were sold by measure, you'd scoop them into a
cup or a basket of a fixed size. To mete out means to measure out and
give. A generous seller used a big, heaping measure. A stingy seller might have used a smaller one.
The
saying means: the size of the measuring-cup you use when you give to
other people is the same size of measuring-cup that will be used when
things are given to you. If you are generous with others, generosity of that same size will come back to you. If you are stingy, stinginess will come back in the same small cup.
(Related: Causality, laws of nature, 'once upon a time' of history)
