"By digressing somewhat from strict Buddhistic teaching, and leaving behind the letter (not the spirit) of the law, we can, I think, arrive at a more satisfactory explanation by a method I have called 'generalization,' in contradistinction to the method just dealt with—viz., Individualization.
"According to the orthodox conception, an individual takes up the Karma of another while it is intact and has not suffered from distribution and dispersion. But there is a broader and less primitive, albeit more heterodox, manner in which we may regard the doctrine, and one which, I think, we may infer was in the mind of Gotama himself when he enunciated the narrower conception in order to simplify it sufficiently to be capable of being grasped by the ignorant. Instead of a man's Karma being individualized—i.e., handed on in an integral state from individual to individual—we should regard it rather as having been generalized and disintegrated during life, leaving no residuum at death. Thus, what is inherited at birth is not the Karma of any one person, but rather the Karma of the race as a whole. 'The souls of men continue to exist as they are impressed upon other generations by heredity and education,'[AH] but the soul of the individual does not continue to exist. It is the soul of the race, not of the individual, which is perpetuated.
"The Karmas of all are, as it were, cast into the mixing-pot and thoroughly sifted, and then, and not till then, embodied in different forms. Seeming inequality of division must be accounted for by the action of local Karma.[AI] There is obviously an advantage associated with this theory not applicable to the theory of individualization. Whereas the latter tends to promote the fallacious idea of personality and self-hood, the former has a wider significance, and tends rather to promote the belief in universal brotherhood by merging personalities into one great whole. It is, in fact, more truly Buddhistic, and, by inspiring a more cosmopolitan sentiment of fellowship, is calculated to overcome, in a great degree, that fallacy most difficult of all fallacies to overcome—the idea of the ego as a permanent entity. The difficulty, also, which is universally felt of accounting for the birth of a new sentient being at every death is by this means obviated....
"Most assuredly we require an explanation of our present condition, and we must accord all honour to Buddhism for having afforded us one both rational and satisfactory. When men come to see and to realize that by every deed committed, and by every word uttered, they are carving out, for evil or good, the future of the race, and that the suffering they now endure they owe entirely to the past sins of humanity, their sense of responsibility will be increased, their hold upon morality strengthened, the bond of unity, 'the brotherhood of man,' confirmed. Abolish the fallacy of cosmic chaos; substitute in its stead the idea of a definite system and purpose; show that man is the only framer of his destiny, the only author of his existence, the only cause of his own suffering—and the foundation of morality will be made sure, the redemption of the race brought within measurable distance. This is the end for which the doctrine of Karma was formulated, and to this end it has been labouring, a silent but progressive force, for many centuries."
The Rev. T. Sterling Berry, D.D., in his Comparative Study of Christianity and Buddhism, treats the latter as a whole in a spirit of commendable catholicity; but when he comes to points of contrast he fails signally to preserve equanimity of judgment, and distorts the import of Gotama's precepts in the most amazing fashion in his endeavour to bring them into opposition to the teaching of Jesus. His view of Karma, however, is, I think, a valuable contribution to the literature on the subject, and worthy of reproduction. He writes: "Strange and well nigh unintelligible as this theory seems, it is nevertheless possible, I believe, to get at the real thought that moulded Gotama's conception—actions of every kind as possessing the nature of seed sown; men were found, to some extent, to reap the consequences of their actions during their lifetime; but this takes place only in a limited and incomplete sense during the existence to which the actions belong. At the close of a life many acts remain like seed sown, but not yet grown up. Hence the theory that when a man dies he leaves the sum-total of the acts of his life as a kind of complex seed, made up of good and bad elements, which, by his death, springs up into a fresh existence, the same and yet not the same; in somewhat of the sense in which it might be said that ordinary seed which springs up as identical and yet not identical with that which is sown. Viewed in this light, the theory loses its apparent absurdity. It becomes, in fact, a mode of expressing partly what we understand by the law of heredity, which involves a transference of character and a reproduction of the consequences of action; and partly the law of retribution, that 'Whatsoever a man soweth that shall he also reap.'"
The continuance of an individual's Karma, conceived as the effects of a man's character upon individuals whom he influences, is a perfectly thinkable process, and a generally accepted fact. But, when we are called upon to consider how it comes about that, on the death of a sentient being, a new sentient being is at once produced, to take up the effects of the deceased one's Karma, then we seem to be launched into a mystery that can only be explained by another mystery.
If such a doctrine is to be interpreted literally, it would seem to necessitate a numerical equality of births and deaths; a new-born babe would have to be ready at each death to receive the Karma-effects of the deceased. It might, however, be made faintly thinkable by including available births in other solar systems, and by allowing for a certain number of Karmas coming to an end by the attainment of Nirvana. This planet is held by Buddhists to be in sympathetic relationship with the other worlds, and there are countless millions of beings who change places. A number of men die somewhere on this earth, and they may not be re-born here at all; a number of beings die in some other planet, and may be re-born here at the same time.
This particular phase of the doctrine of Karma has been so distinctly enunciated in Buddhist writings that it becomes a question for the interpreter of Buddhism to decide whether it should be retained as a literal statement, and so dismissed as an unthinkable, or whether it should be given the chance of being classified as rational by expansive treatment.