Vulgar people are too eager to see everything and every act they perform working for the accumulation of earthly wealth and the promotion of material welfare. They would want to turn even moral deeds which have no relation to the economic condition of life into the opportunities to attain things mundane. They would desire to have the law of karmaic causation applied to a realm, where prevails an entirely different set of laws. In point of fact, what proceeds from meritorious deeds is spiritual bliss only,—contentment, tranquillity of mind, meekness of heart, and immovability of faith,—all the heavenly treasures which could not be corrupted by moth or rust. And what more can the karma of good deeds bring to us? And what more would a man of pious heart desire to gain from his being good? “Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink, nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on. Is not the life more than meat and the body more than raiment?” Let us then do away with the worldly interpretation of karma, which is so contrary to the spirit of Buddhism.
As long as we live under the present state of things, it is impossible to escape the curse of social injustice and economic inequality. Some people must be born rich and noble and enjoying a superabundance of material wealth, while others must be groaning under the unbearable burden imposed upon them by cruel society. Unless we make a radical change in our present social organisation, we cannot expect every one of us to enjoy equal opportunity and fair chance. Unless we have a certain form of socialism installed which is liberal and rational and systematic, there must be some who are economically more favored than others. But this state of affairs is a phenomenon of worldly institution and is doomed to die away sooner or later. The law of karma, on the contrary, is an eternal ordinance of the will of the Dharmakâya as manifested in this world of particulars. We must not confuse a transient accident of human society with an absolute decree issued from the world-authority.
An Individualistic View of Karma.
There is another popular misconception concerning the doctrine of karma, which seriously mars the true interpretation of Buddhism. I mean by this an individualistic view of the doctrine. This view asserts that deeds, good or evil, committed by a person determine only his own fate, no other’s being affected thereby in any possible way, and that the reason why we should refrain from doing wrong is: for we, and not others, have to suffer its evil consequences. This conception of karma which I call individualistic, presupposes the absolute reality of an individual soul and its continuance as such in a new corporeal existence which is made possible by its previous karma. Because an individual soul is here understood as an independent unit, which stands in no relation to others, and which therefore neither does influence nor is influenced by them in any wise. All that is done by oneself is suffered by oneself only and no other people have anything to do with it, nor do they suffer a whit thereby.
Buddhism, however, does not advocate this individualistic interpretation of karmaic law, for it is not in accord with the theory of non-âtman, nor with that of Dharmakâya.
According to the orthodox theory, karma simply means the conservation or immortality of the inner force of deeds regardless of their author’s physical identity. Deeds once committed, good or evil, leave permanent effects on the general system of sentient beings, of which the actor is merely a component part; and it is not the actor himself only, but everybody constituting a grand psychic community called “Dharmadhâtu” (spiritual universe), that suffers or enjoys the outcome of a moral deed.
Because the universe is not a theatre for one particular soul only; on the contrary, it belongs to all sentient beings, each forming a psychic unit; and these units are so intimately knitted together in blood and soul that the effects of even apparently trifling deeds committed by an individual are felt by others just as much and just as surely as the doer himself. Throw an insignificant piece of stone into a vast expanse of water, and it will certainly create an almost endless series of ripples, however imperceptible, that never stop till they reach the furthest shore. The tremulation thus caused is felt by the sinking stone as much as the water disturbed. The universe that may seem to crude observers merely as a system of crass physical forces is in reality a great spiritual community, and every one of sentient beings forms its component part. This most complicated, most subtle, most sensitive, and best organised mass of spiritual atoms transmits its current of moral electricity from one particle to another with utmost rapidity and surety. Because this community is at bottom an expression of one Dharmakâya. However diversified and dissimilar it may appear in its material individual aspect, it is after all no more than an evolution of one pervading essence, in which the multitudinousness of things finds its unity and identity. Therefore, it is for the interests of the community at large, and not for their own welfare only, that sincere Buddhists refrain from transgressing moral laws and are encouraged to promote goodness. Those whose spiritual insight thus penetrates deep into the inner unity and interaction of all human souls are called Bodhisattvas.
It is with this spirit, let me repeat, that pious Buddhists do not wish to keep for themselves any merits created by their acts of love and benevolence, but wish to turn them over (parivarta) to the deliverance of all sentient creatures from the darkness of ignorance. The most typical way of concluding any religious treatise by Buddhists, therefore, runs generally in the following manner:
“The deep significance of the three karmas as taught by Buddha,
I have thus completed elucidating in accord with the Dharma and logic:
By dint of this merit I pray to deliver all sentient beings
And to make them soon attain to perfect enlightenment.”[88]
Or,