Outlines of Mahayana Buddhism

by Daisetz Teitaro Suzuki

“All the merits arising from this my exposition
May abide and be universally distributed among all beings;
And may they ascend in the scale of existence and increase in bliss and wisdom,
And soon attain to an enlightenment supreme, perfect, great, and far-reaching.”^[89]

The reason why a moral deed performed by one person would contribute to the attainment by others of supreme enlightenment, is that souls which are ordinarily supposed to be individual and independent of others are not so in fact, but are very closely intermingled with one another, so that a stir produced in one is sooner or later transmitted to another influencing it rightfully or wrongfully. The karmaic effect of my own deed determines not only my own future, but to a not little extent that of others; hence those invocations just quoted by pious Buddhists who desire to dedicate all the merits they can attain to the general welfare of the masses.

The ever-increasing tendency of humanity to widen and facilitate communication in every possible way is a phenomenon illustrative of the intrinsic oneness of human souls. Isolation kills, for it is another name for death. Every soul that lives and grows desires to embrace others, to be in communion with them, to be supplemented by them, and to expand infinitely so that all individual souls are brought together and united in the one soul. Under this condition only a man’s karma is enabled to influence other people, and his merits can be utilised for the promotion of general enlightenment.

Karma and Determinism.

If the irrefragability of karma means the predetermination of our moral life, some would reason, the doctrine is fatalism pure and simple. It is quite true that our present life is the result of the karma accumulated in our previous existences, and that as long as the karma preserves its vitality there is no chance whatever to escape its consequences, good or evil. It is also true that as the meanest sparrow shall not fall on the ground without the knowledge of God, and as the very hairs of our heads are all numbered by him, so even a single blade of grass does not quiver before the evening breeze without the force of karma. It is also true that if our intellect were not near-sighted as it is, we could reduce a possible complexity of the conditions under which our life exists into its simplest terms, and thus predict with mathematical precision the course of a life through which it is destined to pass. If we could record all our previous karma from time immemorial and all its consequences both on ourselves and on those who come in contact with us, there would be no difficulty in determining our future life with utmost certainty. The human intellect, however, as it happens, is incapable of undertaking a work of such an enormous magnitude, we cannot perceive the full significance of determinism; but, from the divine point of view, determinism seems to be perfectly justified, for there cannot be any short-sightedness on the part of a world-soul as to the destiny of the universe, which is nothing but its own expression. It is only from the human point of view that we feel uncertain about our final disposition and endeavor to explain existence now from a mechanical, now from a teleological standpoint, and yet, strange enough, at the bottom of our soul we feel that there is something mysterious here which makes us cry, either in despair or in trustful resignation, “Let thy will be done.” While this very confidence in “thy will” proves that we have in our inmost consciousness and outside the pale of intellectual analysis a belief in the supreme order, which is absolutely preordained and which at least is not controllable by our finite, limited, fragmentary mind, yet the doctrine of karma must not be understood in the strictest sense of fatalism.

As far as a general theory of determinism is concerned, Buddhism has no objection to it. Grant that there is a law of causation, that every deed, actualised or thought of, leaves something behind, and that this something becomes a determining factor for our future life; then how could we escape the conclusion that “each of us is inevitable” as Whitman sings? Religious confidence in a divine will that is supposed to give us always the best of things, is in fact no more than a determinism. But if, in applying the doctrine to our practical life, we forget to endeavor to unfold all the possibilities that might lie in us, but could be awakened only after strenuous efforts, there will be no moral characters, no personal responsibility, no noble aspirations; the mind will be nothing but a reflex nervous system and life a sheer machinery.

In fact karma is not a machine which is not incapable of regeneration and self-multiplication. Karma is a wonderful organic power; it grows, it expands, and even gives birth to a new karma. It is like unto a grain of mustard, the least of all seeds, but, being full of vitality, it grows as soon as it comes in contact with the nourishing soil and becometh a tree so that the birds of the air come and lodge in the branches thereof. Its mystery is like that of sympathetic waves that pass through all the hearts which feel the great deeds of a hero or listen to the story of a self-sacrificing mother. Karma, good or evil, is contagious and sympathetic in its work. Even a most insignificant act of goodness reaps an unexpectedly rich crop. Even to the vilest rogue comes a chance for repentance by dint of a single good karma ever effected in his life, which has extended through many a kalpa. And the most wonderful thing in our spiritual world is that the karma thus bringing repentance and Nirvâna to the heart of the meanest awakens and rekindles a similar karma potentially slumbering in other hearts and leads them to the final abode of enlightenment.

Inasmuch as we confine ourselves to general, superficial view of the theory of karma, it leads to a form of determinism, but in our practical life which is a product of extremely complicated factors, the doctrine of karma allows in us all kinds of possibilities and all chances of development. We thus escape the mechanical conception of life, we are saved from the despair of predetermination, though this is true to a great extent; and we are assured of the actualisation of hopes, however remote it may be. Though the curse of evil karma may sometimes hang upon us very heavily, there is no reason to bury our aspirations altogether in the grave; on the contrary, let us bear it bravely and perform all the acts of goodness to destroy the last remnant of evil and to mature the stock of good karma.

The Maturing of Good Stock (kuçalamûla) and the
Accumulation of merits (punyaskandha).

One of the most significant facts, which we cannot well afford to ignore while treating of the doctrine of karma, is the Buddhist belief that Çâkyamuni reached his supreme Buddhahood only after a long practise of the six virtues of perfection (pâramitâs) through many a rebirth. This belief constitutes the very foundation of the ethics of Buddhism and has all-important bearings on the doctrine of karma.